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976.902
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1182954
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GENEALOGY COL-LECTIOKf
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 017
5 2429
ouisville's
C -janiziics
SARAH VEECH GARVIN
Sketched from a portrait in the home of her granddaughter,
Mary Jane Bell, on Fourth street. Sarah Veech Garvin was
the daughter of John and Agnes Weir Veech and the wife
of William Garvin.
-L/ouisville s r'lrst Famili
les
A SERIES OF GENEALOGICAL SKETCHES
BY
KATHLEEN JENNINGS
WITH DRAWINGS BY EUGENIA JOHNSON
THE STANDARD PRINTING CO.
PUBLISHERS : : : : LOUISVILLE, KY.
COPYRIGHT 1920 BY
THE STANDARD PRINTING COMPANY
INCORPORATED
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PUBLISHED MAY 7 S20
-1_ -Jr. O j^ ^y xy "'A
^
^r> Foreword
\^ Typical of the gentlefolk who came to the
I Kentucky frontier in the last thirty years of the
>. ^. Eighteenth century are the twelve families grouped
in this series, known as Louisville's First Families.
An effort has been made to picture the early social
life of Louisville as inaugurated by the twelve
\ families included and by similar families of culture
V and refinement that emigrated from Virginia, Mary-
'v -^ land and Pennsylvania to the wilderness in the
^ late seventeen hundreds.
^
\
From family records and traditions that have
^ come down, verbally, through the several genera-
js^ tions, material was obtained with which to illustrate
>/ the permanency of these families in the city, listing
the descendants of the pioneers, to link the
Eighteenth century with the Twentieth, and to in-
dicate the shaping influence of such people upon
the growth of a community.
Contents
Foreword -- '
I ntroduction — 1 3
I The Bullitt family (part I) — 19
II The Bullitt family (part II) 27
III The Prather family 35
IV The Clark family 45
V The Churchill family 59
VI The Pope family 69
VII The Speed family 81
VIII The Joyes family 91
IX The Veech family 101
X The Thrus ton family _ 113
XI The Taylor family 125
XII The Bate family 141
XIII The Floyd family (part I) „ 153
XIV The Floyd family (part II) 167
IHustratfons
Portrait of Sarah Veech Garvin. [Frontispiece.]
Oxmoor, the house built by Alexander Scott Bullitt.
The Jouett portrait of Cuthbert Bullitt.
The Jouett portrait of Thomas Prather.
Locust Grove, the home of Lucy Clark Croughan.
Spring Hill, the home of Samuel Churchill.
Portrait of Martha Pope Humphrey.
Farmington, the Speed homestead.
Portrait of Thomas Joyes.
Portrait of Richard Snowden Veech.
Portrait of Buckner Thruston.
Portrait of Zachary Taylor.
Portraits of Edmund Berry Taylor and his wife,
Susannah Gibson Taylor.
Berry Hill, the house built by James Smalley Bate.
Portrait of John. Floyd.
Portrait of Capt. Thomas Floyd Smith.
Introduction
EJISVILLE society was as delightful in
1819 as in these 1919 care-free days
of after the war, if one may rely upon
the accuracy of Dr. Henrico McMurtrie, who pub-
lished his "Sketches of Louisville" just a hun-
dred years ago. Surely his graceful tribute to
society will bear repetition, for while Louisville,
the town of 4,500 at the Falls of the Ohio, has
lost its slender proportions, has changed in many
ways, even in climate, the social life has with-
stood time to the extent of proving quite as rare
and interesting and has managed to hold within
the circle families of the same name as those that
dispensed hospitality in memorable fashion in
his day.
Dr. McMurtrie observed that the majority of
the inhabitants, engaged in adding dollar to dol-
lar, devoted no time to literature or "to the ac-
quirement of those graceful nothings, which, of
no value in themselves, still constitute one great
charm of polished society. Such is the charac-
ter of the inhabitants of this place, in general,
"ma ogni medaglio ha il suo reverso." There is
a circle, small 'tis true, but within whose magic
round abounds every pleasure that wealth, regu-
lated by taste, can produce, or urbanity bestow.
Louisville's First Families
There, the "red heel" of Versailles may imagine
himself in the emporium of fashion, and, whilst
leading beauty through the mazes of the dance,
forget that he is in the wilds of America."
Since that time many families have come to
Louisville to take up their residence; aristocratic
families of Virginia, families representing the
flower of the far South, families of culture and
refinement from across the Mason and Dixon line,
those who came over in the Mayflower, and
others on the "W. C. Hite," as one society leader
cleverly described the arrival of her antecedents
in our midst. These good people have made
their place in the community, are indispensable
to the city's business, social, and club life, but
in connecting what in Dr. McMurtrie's day made
society a rare and beautiful phase of life in a
bustling frontier town, with the Louisville society
after a hundred years have past, attention must
be devoted and confined to the first families from
an historian's viewpoint, but first families in the
other sense, too, for they represent today what
they then stood for in position, culture and refine-
ment.
They formed the nucleus of society in 1819,
but they came to the beautiful country of the
Beargrass before 1 800.
The population of the town in 1 780 was in-
correctly rated by an early historian as thirty
14
Introduction
inhabitants, though the figure was nearer one
hundred and fifty, so it should not be difficult to
separate the sheep from the goats, although it
would appear that there were only sheep among
the early settlers, leaving the other class to be
composed of marauding Indians, who bitterly
contested possession of every clearing the original
group of cotillon leaders and future bank presi-
dents made. Kentucky, at that time the Fin-
castle county of Virginia, was known as the land
of blood, but was desired by Virginia gentlemen
for immigration purposes, no less heartily than
by the Indians of the North and South who had
marked it for their own as a hunting ground.
The Indians bit the dust in many of these en-
counters, but heavy toll was taken among the
pioneers, whose families counted possession of
Kentucky homes all the more dear in their tragic
association.
15
-^m^mMi
Built in 1787 by Alexander Scott Bullitt.
A view of the frame portion of the present Oxmoor house
occupied by William Marshall Bullitt. The dwelling,
sketched above from an illustration in Colonel Thomas W.
Bullitt's "My Life at Oxmoor", included four rooms and a
central hall, in which there was a stairway of walnut, prettily
carved, leading to two attic rooms above.
The brick front was built by William C. Bullitt, early in
the last century.
The Bullitt Family. I.
CAPT. Thomas Bullitt, a distinguished sol-
dier in the French and Indian wars,
headed a surveying party which jour-
neyed from Virginia to the falls of the Ohio
in July, 1 773, and in August of that year
laid out a town. Twelve years later, his
nephew, Alexander Scott Bullitt, after a brief
residence in Shelby county, on Bull Skin creek,
moved down to the settlement at Falls of Ohio.
On a farm of a thousand acres on Beargrass
creek, nine miles from Louisville, he built his first
home, a log cabin. He named the farm Oxmoor,
from the celebrated Oxmoor, of Tristam Shandy,
and on this farm lives his lineal descendant,
William Marshall Bullitt, and his family, the
property having been in possession of the Bullitts
from that day when Alexander Scott Bullitt and
his bride, Priscilla Christian, came to make the
Kentucky home of this branch of the Bullitt
family that has figured prominently in the social
and professional life of Louisville ever since.
Alexander Scott Bullitt, the son of Judge
Cuthbert Bullitt, of the General Court of Virginia,
preferred coming to Kentucky to fight Indians
19
Louisville's First Families
to staying at home and studying law. His fifteen-
year-old bride, Priscilla, was the daughter of
Col. William Christian and his wife, Annie Henry,
a sister of Patrick Henry. Col. Christian, by a
patent of 1 780, was granted 2,000 acres of the
Beargrass land which had been surveyed in 1 774,
and on it, in 1 780, there was a considerable
fort, Sturgis Station, occupied by from twenty
to forty families. Thither Col. Christian, of
Virginia, sent his slaves ahead to prepare a
dwelling, and he with his family arrived to settle
in August, 1 785. Col. Christian was killed by
Indians in 1 786. Two years after building the
log cabin above the spring of Oxmoor, the Bul-
litts erected a frame house where their children,
Cuthbert, Helen Scott, Anne and William C.
Bullitt, were born.
Alexander Scott Bullitt, after the death of
his wife, Priscilla, married a widow, Mrs. Mary
Churchill Prather, a sister of Col. Samuel
Churchill, Armistead and Henry Churchill,
prominent Louisville men of affairs. The Bul-
litts and the Churchills were intimate friends.
Alexander Scott Bullitt was one of the eleven
State Senators in the first Kentucky Legislature,
June 4, 1 792. He was elected Speaker of the
Senate and re-elected for twelve years. He was
the first Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky in
May, 1800. Bullitt county was named for him.
20
Bullitt
In September, 1819, William C. Bullitt
married Mildred Ann Fry, a daughter of Col.
Joshua Fry and his wife, Peachy Walker, of
Albemarle county, Va., who emigrated to Ken-
tucky, and have other descendants in Louisville
in the Speeds. Col. Fry was commander of a
regiment in the French and Indian war, 1 754,
in which George Washington served as lieutenant
colonel.
William C. Bullitt built the brick front of
the Oxmoor residence, completing the structure
as it now stands. Here ten children were born
to William C. Bullitt and his wife, and three of
these have descendants in Louisville; Sue Bullitt,
who married the Hon. Archibald Dixon, of Hen-
derson, the mother of William B. Dixon; Helen
Bullitt, who married Henry Chenoweth, the
mother of Mrs. John Stites, Miss Fanny Cheno-
weth, Mrs. Hugh Barret, Mr. Henry Chenoweth
and Dr. James Chenoweth; and Col. Thomas
Walker Bullitt, long prominent in Louisville as
a lawyer and citizen, who married Priscilla
Logan. Col. Bullitt was the father of William
Marshall Bullitt, Alexander Scott Bullitt and
Keith Bullitt. His other children do not make
their home in Louisville.
The youngest member of the family is Master
Benjamin Logan Bullitt, the infant son of Mr.
21
Louisville's First Families
and Mrs. Keith Bullitt, who leave shortly to take
up their residence in Seattle.
Cuthbert Bullitt, the brother of Willian C.
Bullitt, married Harriett Willett and had a son.
Dr. Henry M. Bullitt, the first dean of the Ken-
tucky School of Medicine and the city's first
health officer.
Dr. Bullitt married Julia Anderson. They
had one daughter, Virginia Bullitt, who married
John Cood, the mother of Helen Cood, who
married Owen Tyler.
Dr. Bullitt married a second time, Mrs Sallie
Paradise, and had four daughters, Elizabeth
Bullitt, who married Charles N. Buck, former
Minister to Paris; Mrs. Julia Bullitt Rauterburg;
Mrs. Edith Bullitt Jacob, wife of Mayor Charles
D. Jacob, and Miss Henrietta Bullitt. Priscilla
Bullitt, a daughter of Cuthbert Bullitt, married
A. A. Gordon, and their daughter, Harriet,
married Logan C. Murray.
The eldest child of Alexander Scott Bullitt,
Anne Christian Bullitt, was married on February
4, 1819, to John Howard, of Maryland, a lineal
descendant of two acting governors of that prov-
ince, namely. Commander Robert Brooke and
Colonel Thomas Brooke. She is ancestress of
the Courtenays. Her daughter, Annie Christian
Howard married October 13, 1842, Robert
Graham Courtenay, of Crown Hall, Ireland, who
22
Bullitt
located in Louisville in 1882, subsequently be-
coming a prominent man of affairs, firm mem-
ber of Thomas Anderson and Company, director
in the Bank of Louisville, director of Louisville
and Frankfort and Lexington and Frankfort
Railroads, administrator of the John L. Martin
estate, and president and engineer of the Lou-
isville Gas Company. Five of their children
figured in Louisville affairs.
The eldest daughter, Julia Christian Courtenay
married Hector V. Loving, and has in Louisville
the following children: Mrs. Julia Loving
George, mother of Julia Courtenay and Robert
George; Laura Loving, the wife of D. C. Harris,
and Emma Loving.
Two other daughters, Emma and Helen Martin
Courtenay, make their home on Fourth street.
A son, Thomas Anderson Courtenay, married
Jane Short Butler, and has the following chil-
dren residing here: Thomas Anderson Courte-
nay, Jr., William Howard Courtenay, II., and
Jane Short Courtenay, wife of Henry S. Tyler.
Another son is William Howard Courtenay,
chief engineer of the L. & N. Railroad, whose wife
is Isabel Stevenson Clark. They have two sons,
Erskine Howard Courtenay and James Clark
Courtenay.
23
CUTHBERT BULLITT
A sketch from the Jouett portrait owned by Hugh Bullitt,
the son of Mr. and Mrs. C. Malcolm Bullitt, and a great-
grandson of this pioneer.
The Bullitt Family. II.
OVERSHADOWED by warehouses and
office buildings, Bullitt street seems a
queer memorial to those Virginia gentle-
men, Cuthbert and Thomas Bullitt, who played
important roles in building up a city at the falls
of the Ohio, and who have left behind them,
besides testimony of their useful careers, a great
number of descendants who are prominent today.
One wonders sometinies how it happens that this
is not Bullittville. On what is now Bullitt street,
back in those early days, there stood two hos-
pitable houses, the grounds extending from
Fourth to Sixth streets and with a view across
the river which is now enjoyed by many business
men from office windows high above the levee,
then a part of the Bullitt's front lawn, for there
were the homes of Mr. and Mrs. Cuthbert Bul-
litt, and of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Bullitt.
The Cuthbert Bullitts had a farm about a mile
and a half south of their town house, the coun-
try home being in what is now Central Park, sur-
rounded by fields and woodland extending front!
Sixth to Second street. This farm, a part of
the Bullitts' large holdings of real estate, was
inherited by Amanthis Bullitt, who married
27
Louisville's First Families
George Weissinger. The land was not desir-
able then as later when the city's growth made
it necessary to drain the land, obliterating the
ponds and enhancing the value of property be-
yond the dreams of the Weissingers, who had
disposed of the farm.
In a chapter devoted to these ponds which
intersected the area on which the city is built
and which, breeding disease, gave Louisville
the name, "Graveyard of the Ohio," Casse-
day wrote in his history of 1852, "A map
of the city as it was sixty or even thirty
years ago would present somewhat the appear-
ance of an archipelago, a sea full of little islands.
The Long Pond commenced at Sixth and Mar-
ket and extended southwest to Sixteenth street.
Gwathmey's, or Grayson's Pond, was on Center
street just in the rear of the First Presbyterian
church, which stood on Green between Sixth and
Center and extended westwardly halfway to
Seventh street. Besides these two principal lakes
there were innumerable others, some containing
water only after heavy rains and others standing
full at all times. Market street from the corner
of Third down was the site of one. Third be-
tween Jefferson and Green, Jefferson near the
comer of Fourth and so on, ad infinitum."
Major William Bullitt was a half-brother of
Capt. Thomas Bullitt, who surveyed the town in
28
Bullitt
1773, and of Judge Cuthbert Bullitt, the father
of Alexander Scott Bullitt, another distinguished
early settler. Major William Bullitt and his
wife, Mary Burbridge, daughter of General Bur-
bridge, of Warfield, Va., were the parents of
Cuthbert and Thomas Bullitt, who came here in
1804, and are described in Collins' History as
"two of the first merchants of Louisville dis-
tinguished for their probity and business qualifi-
cations, who amassed large estates for their
descendants."
Cuthbert Bullitt married Anne Neville, of
Virginia, daughter of General Joseph Neville, of
Revolutionary fame. They journeyed to Louis-
ville to build their home here on the river front.
Thomas Bullitt married Diana Gwathmey, of the
prominent pioneer family, and their son, Alex-
ander Bullitt, owned the handsome home on Jef-
ferson street, now the Holcomb mission. Alex-
ander Bullitt married twice, his first wife being a
beautiful heiress, Fannie Smith, for whom two
steamboats were named, one the "Fannie Smith,"
the other, the "Fannie Bullitt." His second wife,
also fair and rich, was Irene Williams, After this
marriage he moved to New Orleans, where he
bought the New Orleans Picayune, one of the
biggest newspapers of the South.
Cuthbert Bullitt and his wife, Anne, were the
parents of eight children, four of whom have
29
Louisville's First Families
families socially prominent in the city: Neville
Bullitt, who married Ann Amelia Steele, the
father of Neville Bullitt; William Bullitt, who mar-
ried Virginia Anderson, the father of the late
Alexander Bullitt, and of Malcolm and Howard
Bullitt (Alexander and Malcolm Bullitt married
two sisters, Clara and Heloise Kennedy) ; Aman-
this Bullitt, who married George Wessinger, the
mother of George Weissinger, who married
Amelia Neville Pearce; of Blanche Weissinger,
who married Capt. Thomas Floyd Smith; of
Harry Weissinger, who married Isabelle Muir,
and of Caroline Bullitt, who married Dr.
Thomas Wilson, the mother of eight daughters.
Neville Bullitt and his wife, Ann Amelia Steele,
built a country home, "Riverside," in 1830, just
above the present site of the Louisville Country
Club, where Mr. John H. Caperton has a hand-
some home now. "Riverside" was the scene of
many gatherings of the Buliitts and their friends.
There w^ere eight children to grow up at "River-
side:" Neville Bullitt, Jr., who married Mattie
D. Bohannon, the father of Capt. Neville Bullitt,
Thomas Bullitt, of Anne Amelia Bullitt (Mrs.
A. B. Pinney), and the Bullitt twins, Emily and
Juliet, the latter, Mrs. James B. Ayers of
Virginia; and William Wurts Bullitt, who mar-
ried Medora Gilmore, the father of Medora,
30
Bullitt
Joseph Neville, and Kirwan Bullitt, are the only
two who have families in Louisville.
Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Wilson had a daughter,
Lucinda, who married Gavin Cochran. Mrs.
Cochran died a short time ago, her children
being: Mrs. Byron Baldwin, John Cochran, Mrs.
Edmund F. Trabue and Wilson Cochran.
Aimira Wilson married Lytleton Cooke, their
daughter, Alice, married David Kellar; Caroline
Wilson married Edward Fulton, their children
being Mrs. John Tevis and Dr. Gavin Fulton;
Amelia Wilson, who married Fred Anderson;
Annie Wilson and Henrietta Wilson.
The children of Capt. and Mrs. Thomas Floyd
Smith are: Mayor George Weissinger Smith,
who married Nell Hunt, a descendant of the
Prathers, another pioneer family; Mrs. Amanthis
Jungbluth, Thomas Floyd Smith, who married
Mary Bruce, and Nan Pope Smith, who married
Frank Carpenter.
Harry Weissinger and his wife, Isabelle Muir,
are the parents of Margaret, who married Samuel
T. Castleman, and is the mother of Harry and
Isabelle Castleman; and of Judge Muir Weis-
singer. Their other children do not live in Lou-
isville.
George Weissinger, w^ho married Amelia Nev-
ille Pearce, v/as the father of Amelia Weissinger,
who married Hoadley Cochran. His home at
31
Louisville's First Families
Pewee Valley was the setting for "The Little
Colonel," by Mrs. Annie Fellows Johnston, the
Little Colonel being his granddaughter, Hattie
Cochran, who is now Mrs. Albert M. Dick, Jr.
Benjamin Bullitt, another son of Major and
Mrs. William Bullitt, married Mary Ferguson, in
1 808. Their daughter, Mary Bullitt, married
Major Richard Zantziger. One of their three
daughters, Octavia Zantziger, married Clarence
Bate, having a son, John Throckmorton Bate.
32
TOHMSON
THOMAS PRATHER
This sketch is made from Jouett's likeness of this estimable
gentleman, who is said to have done more for the advance-
ment of Louisville than any other one man. The Jouett
portrait of Thomas Prather is owned by his great-great-
granddaughter, Mrs. J. Barbour Minnigerode.
1182954
The Prather Family.
A PUBLIC - SPIRITED citizen identified
with the growth of Louisville no less
than with the social life of his day was
Thomas Prather, born in Maryland in 1770, of
English extraction. He crossed the Wilderness
Trail to seek his fortune in the new coun-
try and was one of the city's first mer-
chants, having opened a store here as early
as 1 794. Success marked his every venture
eind riches poured in upon him. He was the
capitalist of his day, and famed for his philan-
thropies. Broadway, for many years Prather
street, was named for him. Prather was presi-
dent of the first bank in Louisville, the old Bank
of Kentucky, which he opened on January 1,
1812, and which did business on Main street
near Fifth. When the bank suspended specie
payments he resigned his office with the remark:
"I can preside over no institution which declines
to meet its engagements promptly and to the
letter."
His generosity in contributing to charitable
and civic endeavors won for him the title of
"Oh, put me down for the balance," Prather.
He gave five acres and Cuthbert Bullitt gave
35
Louisville's First Families
three to the city for a hospital site in 1817. In-
terested in the general welfare, Prather and Bul-
litt served on many committees together. With
Peter F. Ormsby they were appointed by the
Board of Trustees, in 1820, to purchase suitable
fire engines (two or three), for the use of the
city.
The property for the hospital site was given
with the proviso that it should revert to the
Prather and Bullitt heirs if used for any other
purpose. When the new million dollar City
Hospital was planned a change of site was con-
sidered until the deeds were looked up and dis-
closed this restriction. One of the numerous
Prather heirs recounting the incident said "It
looked for a time as if I might have fifty dollars
for a new frock."
Thomas Prather was married in 1 800 to
Matilda Fontaine, a daughter of Capt. Aaron
Fontaine, one of the pretty Miss Fontaines, as
they were called, though they were also known
as the alphabet Fontaines there were so many of
them. Matilda and her eight sisters were all
famous for their beauty and intellectuality, and
all married distinguished men. From Matilda
Fontaine is supposed to come the fresh blonde
prettiness of the Prather women.
The Prather residence stood in Prather square,
the block bounded by Third and Fourth, Walnut
36
P r a t h e r
and Green, Walnut street taking its name from
the fine row of walnut trees on the south side
of the house. This house was built by Judge
Fortunatus Cosby, who married Mrs. Prather's
sister, Mary Ann Fontaine.
It was on the way home from Philadelphia
where he had been on business that Prather met
a young man, John J. Jacob, of Hampshire
county, Virginia, starting out to seek his fortune.
He urged Jacob to come to Louisville, and after-
ward took the young gentleman into partnership,
forming the firm of Prather & Jacob. John J.
Jacob married Ann Overton Fontaine and built a
home across Walnut street from his brother-in-
law Prather's home, where the Pendennis Club is
today.
Thomas and Matilda Prather had six children,
two sons and four daughters. James Smiley
Prather married Louisa Martin and their chil-
dren were: Mary (Mrs. George Robinson Hunt)
and Blanche (Mrs. Edward Mitchell). Mrs.
Hunt, who died not long ago, has two daughters
in Louisville — Ellen Pope Hunt, the wife of
George Weissinger Smith, and Kate Hunt, who
married Samuel Hutchings.
The other son, William Prather, married his
first cousin, Penelope Pope, the daughter of
Alexander Pope, whose wife was Martha Fon-
taine. This marriage establishes a wide connec-
37
Louisville's First Families
tion of families socially prominent. William and
Penelope Prather had seven daughters: Kate,
who married Orville Winston; Sue, who is Mrs.
John Zanone; Matilda, who married Goldsbor-
ough Robinson; Julia and Martha, who died
young, and the twins, Penelope and Margaret,
the latter, Mrs. John Luce, and her sister, better
known as Miss Eppie Prather, the only descen-
dant with the surname, Prather. Mrs. William
B. Hardy and Humphrey Robinson are the chil-
dren of Goldsborough and Matilda Robinson,
who live here. Mrs. Alex P. Witty and Prather
Zanone are the daughter and son of Mrs. Za-
none. The daughters of Kate and Orville Wins-
ton were Penelope (Mrs. Ernest Allis), the
mother of Mrs. William B. Harrison, and Kate
(Mrs. Frederick Hussey), the mother of Mrs.
Barbour Minnigerode, Mrs. Arthur H. Mid-
dleton, Mrs. Thomas Jefferson, of Springfield,
Mass., and Mabel Hussey, of Paris.
Thomas and Matilda Prather's daughters all
married prominent Kentuckians. Mary Jane
Prather married Worden P. Churchill, and
after his death married Dr. Charles M. Way.
Her sons were Worden P. Churchill and W. H.
Way.
Matilda Prather married Samuel Smith
Nicholas, the distinguished lawyer and jurist.
Their handsome home was on Fifth street be-
38
P r a t h e r
tween Chestnut and Walnut. Their daughter,
Julia, Mrs. James C. Johnston, lives with her
daughter. Miss Mary Johnston, at Fourth and
Broadway. Their sons, George and Samuel
Smith Nicholas, have a number of descendants
here. George Nicholas married Emma Hawes
and had a daughter, Tina Nicholas, who mar-
ried John Churchill. The son of Mr. and Mrs.
John Churchill is John Churchill, who married
Lucy Jones.
By a second marriage to Mary Anna Pope,
George Nicholas had ten children. One son,
George Nicholas, who married Evelyn Thomp-
son, lives in Crescent Hill, and another son.
Pope Nicholas, lives in Shelbjn^ille, but is in
business in Louisville.
Samuel Smith Nicholas, Jr., who married
Nannie Carter, daughter of Capt. Frank Carter,
has two daughters in Louisville this winter,
Emma Nicholas and Mrs. Harry Lee Williams,
although the latter's home is in Chicago.
Maria Julia Prather married Henry Clay, Jr.,
the son of the Great Commoner, and her
daughter, Nannie Clay, now Mrs. Henry Mc-
Dowell, inherited Ashland, near Lexington, the
home of Henry Clay.
Catherine Cornelia Prather married the Pres-
byterian minister, the Rev. Edward P. Humphrey,
their son being the late E. W. C. Humphrey*
39
Louisville's First Families
father of Edward P. Humphrey, Lewis C.
Humphrey and Dr. Heman Humphrey. Dr.
Humphrey, who was a native of Connecticut and
the son of a distinguished minister, the president
of Amherst College, had as his charge a church
in Jeffersonville at the time of his marriage to
Miss Prather. Later he was minister of the old
Second Presbyterian church, and this church
granted him a leave of absence of eight months
to go abroad after his wife's death. In 1847
he was married to Martha Pope, a daughter of
Alexander Pope and Martha Fontaine, who was
the widow of her cousin, Charles Pope. Dr.
Humphrey and his wife, Martha Pope, had one
son. Judge Alexander Pope Humphrey.
Capt. Basil Prather, born in 1 740 in Maryland,
was an elder half-brother of Thomas Prather.
He fought through the Revolutionary war, de-
clining any pay for his services, and later came
to Louisville. He has been described as exceed-
ingly handsome, six feet three inches tall and of
cordial and engaging manners. He is numbered
among the commissioners of Louisville in 1 790,
and owned farm land near Louisville and in
other parts of the State, bequeathed to his heirs
on which they settled.
At a ball given in the fort built on the site of
Jeffersonville he met Fanny Meriwether, of the
40
P r a t h e r
pioneer family, and shortly afterward they were
married. His bride was years younger than him-
self. They settled on a farm in the Bluegrass
district, living in opulence. Their daughter,
Martha Meriwether Prather, married Dr. War-
wick Miller, a son of Judge Isaac Miller, of
Pennsylvania, who was an early settler.
Capt. Prather died in 1803.
Richard Prather, another member of the
Maryland family to settle here, was one of the
"City fathers," being elected a trustee of the town
of Louisville in 1797. His wife was Mary
Churchill, a daughter of Armistead and Eliza-
beth Bakewell Churchill, of Virginia, who were
among the prominent pioneers of 1787. Eliza
Prather, the daughter of Richard and Mary
Prather, became the wife of James Guthrie, that
distinguished citizen, the founder of the L. & N.
James and Eliza Guthrie had two daughters, Ann
Augusta and Mary Guthrie, both of whom mar-
ried and have descendants here.
Ann Augusta Guthrie married Dr. William
Caldwell, and was the mother of James Guthrie
Caldwell, who married Nannie Standiford; of
Junius Caldwell, who married Ella Payne, of
Georgetown; and of Ann Eliza Caldwell, who
married Ernest Norton, and was the mother of
Caldwell Norton.
41
Louisville's First Families
Mary Guthrie married Richard Coke, of Logan
county, and has a grandson. Dr. Richard Coke,
who makes Louisville his home.
Mary Guthrie married a second time, John
Caperton, and was the mother of John H. Caper-
ton, who married Virginia Standiford, and has a
son, Hugh John Caperton, whose wife was
Dorothy Bonnie.
Following her first husband's death, Mary
Churchill Prather married Alexander Scott Bul-
litt, this being his second marriage also.
42
'LOCUST GROVE"
?JWtTIT?'^jr^r^5?«*
The home of Major William Croughan and his wife, Lucy
Clark.
The house, still standing, is about three fourths of a mile
south of Blankenbaker's Station on the Prospect line. It was
here that Gen. George Rogers Clark died on February 13,
1818.
The Clark Family.
KENTUCKY is justly famed for her hos-
pitality, but an incident of inhospitality
in a pioneer home on the Ohio river
near Carrollton is the basis of an interesting
anecdote for the descendants of John and
Anne Rogers Clark, who emigrated from Vir-
ginia in 1 784 to take up their residence at
the Falls of the Ohio, where a home, "Mul-
berry Hill," had been made ready for them by
their son. Gen. George Rogers Clark. Mr. and
Mrs. Clark, their children and servants, escaped
death at the hands of Indians when Mrs. Elliott,
the wife of a Capt. Elliott, who had frequently
been a guest at the Clark home in Caroline
county, Va., failed to extend the courtesy of her
house and board to them on March 3, 1 785,
as they voyaged down the Ohio.
The Clarks had apprised Capt. Elliott of their
plans to journey to the new settlement, and had
been urged by him to visit his home and to be-
come acquainted with his wife and young
daughter, of whom they had so often heard him
speak. Although they left Virginia in October,
owing to the bad condition of the roads, the in-
clemency of the weather, and the obstructions in
45
Louisville's First Families
the Monongahela, it was March when the party
in boats arrived at the mouth of the Kentucky.
John Clark and one of his men landing, went
ahead to announce to Capt. Elliott the arrival of
the party. Clark was greeted by Mrs. Elliott,
who told of her husband's absence on a hunt-
ing trip. Abashed at the coolness of his recep-
tion Clark joined the travel-worn party in the
boats and proceeded to Fort Nelson, where they
were welcomed by the settlers.
Hardly had the Clarks resumed their journey
before Indians on the war-path attacked the
Elliott cabin, killing and scalping Capt. Elliott's
brother, who, with several of his workmen, ar-
rived immediately after Clark's departure to be
mortified that his sister-in-law had not dispensed
hospitality to the travelers. Mrs. Elliott and her
daughter made a miraculous escape from the
cabin to the river bank, unseen by the savages.
They were joined by Capt. Elliott, who, return-
ing unexpectedly, saw the warriors' canoes on the
river and his home in flames. The Elliotts, hav-
ing rescued the body of their kinsman from the
ruins, embarked to seek security at Fort Nelson,
where they were comforted and befriended, first
of all, by the Clarks.
Mrs. Elliott offered excuses for her inhospitality,
relating her confusion at the thought of receiving
the Clarks in her crude frontier dwelling, know-
46
Clark
ing as she did the style and comfort of their
life in Virginia, explaining that in years she had
not seen any white persons save the members of
her own family, that she was overcome with
embarrassment at the encounter. She assured
Mrs. Clark that the latter owed her life and that
of her family to this breach of courtesy.
The pioneers John and Anne Rogers Clark
had ten children, six sons, five of whom were offi-
cers in the Revolutionary war, the sixth being too
young to serve; four daughters, two of whom
married officers, and two soldiers in the Con-
tinental army.
Gen. George Rogers Clark, whose history-
making career is too well known to be repeated
here, had been in Louisville long enough to
change his residence several times before his par-
ents decided to join him, having moved with the
first settler families from Com Island in 1779
to a fort at the foot of Twelfth street, and in I 782
to Fort Nelson, built by the troops on the north
side of Main street, between Sixth and Eighth.
"Mulberry Hill," a fine estate two miles east
of the city limits, boasted a spacious double-log
house, with a wide hall through the center. There
were four large square rooms, porches and store
rooms, with the kitchen in a separate building
some distance from the house and near the
spring.
47
Louisville's First Families
Gen. Jonathan Clark, who came to Louisville
years later than the other members of the family,
had married Sarah Hite in Virginia. He built
a home at "Trough Spring," east of Mulberry
Hill. The Bernheim place, Shadyside, and the
old Richardson place are part of his farm. A
French cabinetmaker came from New Orleans
to make the furniture for his use. His daughter,
Anna Clark, who married James Anderson
Pearce, came into possession of "Trough Spring"
and used it as a country house, her home in town
being on the River front. When old Fort Nel-
son was razed and the property sold, Pearce
bought the land and erected a brick dwelling with
an iron veranda, at what is now the comer of
Seventh and Water. This home, in which the
Pearce children were born, was torn down when
the property again changed hands, and the Burge
home was built there.
James Pearce, who was a Virginian, a man of
affairs and considerable means, presented the
river frontage before his home, the two blocks
of Water street and wharf, to the city, making
a proviso in the deed which brought an interest-
ing suit in 1880. In that year the C. & O. rail-
road attempted to obtain a right of way for a
line along the river front and was bitterly op-
posed by merchants of the city who protested that
the business on the wharf would be ruined by
48
Clark
this arrangement. A number of indignation meet-
ings were held, attended by business men of Lou-
isville. Temple Bodley, a young lawyer in those
days, a grandson of James Pearce, was ap-
proached by a committee of merchants to ask
his mother, Mrs. William S. Bodley, to file a suit
to prevent this use of her father's gift, for they
had found the old deed which provided that if
the city permitted any building, etc., to be
erected, obstructing the view of the Ohio river
from the donor's home, garden or vineyard, the
property should revert to the heirs. Mrs. Bodley
brought the suit and an injunction was granted.
There are no descendants of Gen. George
Rogers Clark in Louisville, for that distinguished
member of the Clark family was never married.
Gen. Jonathan Clark and his wife, Sarah Hite,
had seven children, three of whom have
descendants in the city. Their eldest daughter,
Eleanor El tinge Clark, married Dr. Benjamin
Temple, the prominent Methodist minister, and
their family also was a large one. Their son,
John B. Temple, whose third wife was Blandina
Brodhead, was a prominent banker and
man of affairs in Frankfort and later in Louis-
ville, being president of the Mutual Life Insurance
Company. His widow made her home in Lou-
isville with her daughters, Mary Temple (Mrs.
R, A. Robinson) and Annie Temple, her death
49
Louisville's First Families
taking place last year. Another daughter is
Blandina (Mrs. William Griffiths).
Ann Clark, the third daughter of Gen. Jonathan
Clark, married James Anderson Pearce, and to
them eight children were born. Their son, Ed-
mund Pearce, who married Myra Steele, was the
father of Amelia Neville Pearce, who became the
wife of George Weissinger, and of John C. Pearce,
who married Susannah Steele. Mrs. Frank
Snead, Mrs. Nolan Milton and John Clark Pearce
are the children of John and Susannah Pearce,
Ellen Pearce married the lawyer. Judge William
S. Bodley, and was the mother of eleven chil-
dren, of whom the following survive: Martha
and Ann Jane Bodley, who live together on
Fourth street; William Stewart Bodley, and
Temple Bodley, who married Edith Fosdick.
Dr. William Clark, the son of Gen Jonathan
Clark, married Frances Ann Tompkins. He in-
herited the Mulberry Hill home of John and Anne
Rogers Clark from his father and in turn be-
queathed it to his daughters, Mary, who married
Dr. George E. Cooke, and Eugenia and Eliza
Clark, who never married.
Dr. Clark's daughter Ellen married Newton
Milton, of Memphis, and her death occurred not
long ago at the home of her grandson, Karl Jung-
bluth, Jr., in Garvin Place. William Clark mar-
50
Clark
ried Annie Bailey, and was the father of Kate
Clark, now Mrs. John C. Doolan, and of Louise
Clark, Mrs. Harry Whitaker, of Wheeling. West
Virginia.
Ann Clark, eldest daughter of John Clark,
married Owen Gwathmey, and was the mother
of eleven children. There are a number of her
descendants in Kentucky. Samuel Gwathmey,
who married Mary Booth, member of a promi-
nent pioneer family, was the father of Rebecca
Ann Gwathmey, who married Henry S. Tyler,
of the distinguished family of that name and a
descendant of the Oldhams. To Rebecca and
Henry S. Tyler five children were born, and a
number of their grandchildren are prominent here.
The oldest son, Isaac Tyler, who married Jennie
Owen, of St. Louis, was the father of Owen Tyler,
Rebecca, Mrs. Harry L. Smyser, Isaac Tyler and
the late Gwathmey Tyler, who married Edmonia
Robinson. Virginia Tyler is Mrs. William A.
Robinson, who with her daughter, Mrs. Spald-
ing Coleman, makes her home on Fourth street
near Kentucky. Levi Tyler married Maria Lewis
and was the father of Mrs. James Franklin Fair-
leigh and Henry S. Tyler. Ella Tyler married
Lewis H. Bond and her children who make Lou-
isville their home are Isaac Tyler Bond, Etta, Mrs.
Dudley Winston, and Joseph Bond.
51
Louisville's First Families
Diana Moore Gwathmey, a daughter of Ann
and Owen Gwathmey, was the wife of Thomas
Bullitt.
Catherine Gwathmey married George Wool-
folk, of the Virginia family which settled here.
Elizabeth Clark married Col. Richard Clough
Anderson, who settled here in 1 738. After his
marriage Col. Anderson built a home in 1 788,
which was known as "Soldiers' Retreat," on the
farm which is now owned by A. T. Hert. This
country place appears on the first maps of the
county.
Ann Clark, who married Owen Gwathmey,
and her sister, Elizabeth Clark, who married Col.
Richard Clough Anderson, are ancestresses of
some Louisville families, for Anne Clark
Gwathmey's daughter, Elizabeth, married her
cousin, Richard Clough Anderson, Jr., who was
one of the most distinguished members of the
family.
Richard Clough Anderson, Jr., was an eloquent
orator, an able lawyer and his talents were not
confined to Louisville where he practiced law at
Fifth and Main. He was Speaker of the House
of Representatives and was minister to Colombia.
While the Andersons w^ere in South America
two daughters were born, Elizabeth and Anne.
The latter was called Anita by her nurse in
Bogota, and in later life she was always Anita.
52
Clark
Anita Anderson was a baby when she came to
the States, the mother having fallen a victim to
the climate, dying at Cartagena, and it is told
that little Anita came across the Isthmus of
Panama, mule back, swung in a saddle bag, baby
on one side and sugar on the other.
Elizabeth Anderson married Col. Stephen
Johnston, U. S. N., and later L. M. Floumoy.
By her first marriage there were two daughters,
one, Hebe Johnston, the widow of Joseph H.
Craig, of New York, is in Louisville, making her
home with the Misses Blain and Judge Randolph
Blain. The other daughter, Elizabeth Johnston,
married Col. Julian Harrison, and one of their
sons, Peyton Harrison, whose wife is Louise
Wheat, has two children, Anne and Julian Harri-
son, and Louisville is their home.
Anita Anderson married a well-known Lou-
isville citizen, John Thompson Gray, and a child
of this marriage, Anita Gray, is the widow of Dr.
James Thornley Berry, of Anita Springs, who
makes her home with her daughter, Anita Berry
Brooke, wife of Robert S. Brooke, of fine Vir-
ginia lineage, and a descendant of Sir Alexander
Spottswood. Anne Carter, Anita Gray, Eliza-
beth Washington Berry, Margaret Lyle and
Roberta Spottswood Brooke compose the family
of Robert S. and Anita Berry Brooke.
53
Louisville's First Families
Not long ago, Robert S. Brooke bought some
farm land in Southern Indiana, just below Fern
Grove; in going over the deed to the property
he found material for an interesting tradition for
his family. The land is a portion of a grant to
George Rogers Clark, kinsman of Mrs. Brooke,
made in 1 783 by Edward Randolph, Governor
of Virginia, a kinsman of Mr. Brooke.
Lucy Clark, another daughter of John and
Anne Rogers Clark, married Major William
Croughan, who had located in Louisville as early
as 1 782. Their home was "Locust Grove," the
scene of generous hospitality. Here Lucy
Croughan's brother. Gen. George Rogers Clark,
died and was buried in the old family burying
ground.
Fanny Clark, the youngest of the four
sisters, was married three times. The sons of
her first husband. Dr. James O'Fallon, removed
to St. Louis. Her second marriage was to Capt.
Charles Minn Thruston, who fought in the Revo-
lutionary war at the age of eleven years, seven
months and three days. He came to Louisville
about I 793. To Fanny and Charles Thruston
two children were born, a son, Charles W. Thrus-
ton, and a daughter, Ann Clark.
After Capt. Thruston's death, his widow mar-
ried Judge Dennis Fitzhugh. Their three chil-
dren located in Arkansas.
54
Clark
Charles W. Thruston married Mary Churchill,
the daughter of Samuel Churchill, and a descend-
ant of the Popes and the Oldhams. Their
daughter, Fanny Thruston, married Andrew Jack-
son Ballard, grandson of Bland Ballard, the cele-
brated Indian fighter. She was the mother of
the late Charles T. Ballard, who married Mina
Breaux; S. Thruston Ballard, who married Sun-
shine Harris, and Rogers Clark Ballard Thrus-
ton.
Ann Clark Thruston, the daughter of Charles
Minn and Fanny Thruston, married Dr. Bernard
G. Farrar, of St. Louis.
The Thruston home stood on Walnut street
near Floyd, where the Ballard grandsons were
born. The house was torn down in 1866, and
on the site a home built by Andrew J. Ballard
and his wife, was completed in 1 868. The house,
now used as the Detention Home, was for many
years their hospitable residence.
William Clark, the youngest son, referred to
above as too young to fight in the Revolution,
was the explorer of the Lewis and Clark ex-
pedition from the Mississippi to the Pacific, 1 804-
06. He was afterward Governor of Missouri.
Gov. William Clark married Julia Hancock,
of Fincastle, Va., and his son, Meriwether Lewis
Clark, married Abigail Prather Churchill, of Lou-
isville. Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr., who mar-
55
Louisville's First Families
ried Mary Martin Anderson, spent a number of
years in Louisville. He was one of the incorpo-
rators and the first president of the Louisville
Jockey Club in 1875 when the first Kentucky
Derby was run, and served as a judge at the
track long after the club changed ownership.
56
tUCENI/S JOHMSor<
"SPRING GROVE"
The home of Samuel Churchill and his wife, Abigail Oldham,
built prior to 1 804. They first lived in the little house at the
left which Col. Churchill had built and occupied when a
bachelor, building on a large two-story addition to accommo-
date their family. The house still stands, facing north on
the Preston street road, just south of Elastern Parkway.
The Churchill Family.
ARMISTEAD CHURCHILL. JR.. born in
Middlesex, Va., in 1 733, was the found-
er of the Louisville family of that name.
He was a captain of the Farquier Militia in
1 759. and served in the Revolution with the
rank of colonel. Col. Churchill married
Elizabeth Bakewell in 1761. They settled in
Farquier county, and to them a number
of children were born. In 1787, when their
youngest son, Samuel, was eight years old, the
Churchills started for Kentucky with their family
and their slaves.
Armistead Churchill came through Cumber-
land Gap and across the Wilderness Trail on a
coach, driving four-in-hand. On reaching Lou-
isville he was completely disgusted with the set-
tlement, according to a tradition in the family,
and would have turned back the next day, but
for three reasons: the badness of the roads over
which he had traveled, the Indians that might be
encountered in the forests, and the fact that the
Ohio river flowed down instead of up toward
Virginia. Making the best of things he stayed,
settling on land nearby and southeast of the
city on a plot of ground, which as "Churchill
59
Louise i I Ic' s First Families
Park" was presented to the city by his great,
great grandsons, Charles T. and S. Thruston
Ballard and R. C. Ballard Thruston. Armistead
Churchill was buried there.
Churchill Park is now part of the Remount
Station at Camp Taylor, its present employment,
serving a wartime need of the government, bring-
ing it within the definition of the city's use of the
property, which was given with the proviso that
it be used for either park or playground pur-
poses.
It was this Armistead Churchill, of Kentucky,
who changed the spelling of the family name
which was originally Churchhill. In the Churchill
Bible brought from Virginia, and which was
destroyed by fire not many years ago, the names
of his first five children were entered as Church-
hill, while in 1770 that of Ann, the sixth child,
was set down as Ann Churchill, omitting an h.
William Churchill, the grandfather of Armi-
stead, emigrated from England in 1 664 to settle
in Middlesex county, Va., and to become one of
the most extensive of the Virginia planters of his
time. His home, Bushy Park, on the bank of
the Rappahannock river near Chesapeake Bay,
was noted for princely hospitality in Colonial
days. A descendant, the late Charles T. Ballard,
built a handsome house at Glen view, "Bushy
Park," preserving the name of the Virginia home
60
Churchill
of his ancestor, now occupied by Mrs. Ballard
and her daughter, Mrs. Charles Homer. They
will move in the spring, however, for Mrs. Ballard
recently sold Bushy Park to Judge Robert W.
Bingham. Adjoining this estate is "Fincastle,"
which preserves the name of Fincastle county,
Va., of which the site of Louisville was once a
part, the home of another Churchill, Mrs.
Alexander Pope Humphrey. On the other side
of Bushy Park is Lansdowne, the home of
S. Thruston Ballard, with its handsome grounds
and residence.
Of the large family of Armistead and Eliza-
beth Churchill, three children are ancestors of
Louisville folk. The fifth son, Henry Churchill,
married Penelope Pope Oldham; the youngest
son, Samuel Churchill, had married Abigail Old-
ham, the daughter of Col. William Oldham and
Penelope Pope, and by his brother's marriage to
his mother-in-law became her brother-in-law.
To complicate the relationship of the descendants
Charles T. Churchill, a son of Samuel and Abigail,
married Sue Payne, granddaughter of Henry and
Penelope Churchill. Henry Churchill was justice
of the peace in Louisville in 1793, but in 1803
was assistant to Stephen Ormsby, judge of the
first circuit court in Jefferson county. He was
one of the trustees of the Jefferson Seminary in
1 798, granted 6,000 acres of land by the legis-
61
Louisville's First Families
lature. Later Henry Churchill removed to Eliza-
bethtown.
Samuel Churchill was a farmer and landowner
who interested himself in everything designed to
advance agricultural pursuits. He was also a
member of the Kentucky Legislature in both
Senate and House.
Henry and Penelope Pope Oldham had a son,
Alexander Pope Churchill, who married Mary
McKinley, the father of Mary Moss Churchill,
who married her cousin, Judge Alexander Pope
Humphrey; the father of Eliza Ann Churchill, who
married J. B. Payne, of Elizabethtown, and was
the mother of Sue Payne, who married her cousin,
Charles T. Churchill. Sue Payne and Charles
Churchill have a son, Samuel Churchill, who
makes Louisville his home. Another descendant
of Henry Churchill who came to Louisville from
Elizabethtown is Mrs. Edmund S. Crume (Eliza-
beth Grimes), who on her mother's side is de-
scended from the Churchills and the Paynes,
and on her father's side had as a great-grand-
mother, Maria Mervin Fontaine, of Louisville,
who married Sterling Grimes, of Georgia, and
who on her wedding day rode away, never to
be seen again by any member of her family.
Mary Churchill, who married Richard Prather
in 1797, was a sister of Henry and Samuel
Churchill and had a daughter, Eliza, who mar-
62
Churchill
ried James Guthrie at the home of her uncle,
Samuel Churchill. James and Eliza Guthrie's
daughter, Ann Augusta Guthrie, married Dr.
William Caldwell, the mother of James Guthrie
Caldwell, who married Nannie Standiford; of
Junius Caldwell, who married Ella Payne, of
Georgetown, and of Ann Eliza Caldwell, who
married Ernest Norton, the father of Caldwell
Norton.
Mary Guthrie married Richard Coke, of Logan
county, and her grandson. Dr. Richard Coke,
makes Louisville his home. Later she married
John Caperton and was the mother of John H.
Caperton, who married Virginia Standiford.
Mary Churchill Prather married a second time,
Alexander Scott Bullitt, but there were no chil-
dren of this marriage.
Samuel and Abigail Oldham Churchill had
sixteen children, and their youngest, Julia, who
married Dr. Luke P. Blackburn in 1857, lives in
the city at her home comer of Third street and
Park avenue.
Among their other children are the following,
who figured in Louisville's society and civic life:
Mary Churchill, who married Charles W. Thrus-
ton, mother of Fanny Thruston, who married
Andrew Jackson Ballard. Fanny and Andrew
Jackson Ballard were the parents of the Ballard
men mentioned above.
63
Louisville's First Families
Samuel Bullitt Churchill, who married Amelia
Walker, was a prominent man of affairs in Ken-
tucky and in St. Louis, where he edited a leading
newspaper. His descendants here are the chil-
dren of his son, John, and his daughter, Mary
Churchill. John Churchill married Eva Fergu-
son and was the father of Matilda, Mrs. Herman
Newcomb, and of Eva, Mrs. Frederick Smith.
Mary Churchill married Dr. Richard Cowling,
professor of surgery at the University of Louis-
ville. Their children are: Matilda, Mrs. Arthur
Sager; Louise, Mrs. Arthur Peter, and Amelia,
Mrs. Karl Jungbluth, Jr.
William Henry Churchill was twice married;
first to Kate Clark and later to Clarence Prentice's
widow, Juila McWilliams Prentice. Mrs.
Churchill lives with her sister, Mrs. J. H. Ran-
lett, on Ormsby avenue.
Abigail Prather Churchill married Meriwether
Lewis Clark, but has no descendants here.
John Churchill, still another son of Samuel and
Abigail, was twice married; first to a Miss
Laurence, and after her death, at the age of 71,
to Tina Nicholas. Their son, John Churchill,
married Lucy Jones. William Henry Churchill
and John Churchill had a home on Sixth street
for many years, and were two of Louisville's
most picturesque figures, distinguished-looking
men, and practically always together. From their
64
Churchill
father they inherited the land which is now
Churchill Downs. Charles Thruston Churchill,
referred to above, married Sue Payne, and was
the father of Samuel Churchill.
Emily Churchill married Hampden Zane, lived
in her later life with her sister, Mrs. Blackburn,
and died here a few years ago. Her descendants
are in Canada.
When John Churchill married Tina Nicholas
their honeymoon was spent abroad, and it so
happened that they were in London at the time
of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Col. and
Mrs. Churchill were given cards to the ceremony
at Westminster Abbey, and upon their arrival
at the entrance were asked their name by the
usher, one of Her Majesty's attendants. Hear-
ing the distinguished looking gentleman say that
he was John Churchill, the usher walked back-
ward up the aisle to the very front pews of the
chapel to seat whom he believed to be a
Marlborough.
William Henry and John Churchill leased their
land, which is now Churchill Downs, to their
nephew, Meriwether Lewis Clark, the first presi-
dent of the Louisville Jockey Club. Churchill
Downs in 1875 was the Louisville Jockey Club
Driving Park, the name being changed afterward.
The race tracks which antedate Churchill Downs
were Woodlawn, on the Westport road, and
65
Louisville's First Families
Oakland, which was at the Seventh-street cross-
ing. Early histories of Louisville record horse
racing on what is now Market street as early as
1 783, and a track at the foot of Sixteenth street,
in the early part of the last century.
66
MARTHA POPE HUMPHREY
Daughter of Alexander Pope and Martha Fontaine,
sketched from a portrait which hangs in "Fincastle", the
home of her son. Judge Alexander Pope Humphrey.
Martha Pope married her cousin, Charles Pope, son of
William Pope Jr., and Cjoithia Sturgess. After his death,
she married the Rev. Edward P. Humphrey. Judge Hum-
phrey's wife, who was Mary Moss Churchill, is a descendant
of Alexander Pope's sister, Penelope Pope, who, after the
death of her husband. Col. William Oldham, married Henry
Churchill. Alexander Pope Churchill, son of Henry and
Penelope Pope Churchill, married Mary McKinley, and was
the father of Mary Moss Churchill.
67
TiOHH^ON
MARTHA POPE HUMPHREY
The Pope Family.
FROM Westmoreland county, Virginia, and
down the Ohio to the settlement at the
mouth of Beargrass, three members of the
Pope family journeyed in late 1779, or in the
first month of 1 780, William Pope and Benjamin
Pope and their sister, Jane Pope, the wife of
Thomas Helm, the founder of the Kentucky
family of that name. They were three of
the four children of Worden Pope and
Hester Netherton, John Pope, the fourth, re-
maining in Virginia. Worden Pope rep-
resented the fourth generation of Popes in
America, before him being three Nathaniel
Popes. Nathaniel Pope, I., of England, settled
in Maryland prior to 1637, and was a member
of the Maryland General Assembly in 1 648. He
moved to Virginia in 1 650, and part of his estate
was "The Cliffs," which passed from the Popes
to one Thomas Ley, ancestor of Robert E. Lee,
the name of the estate changing to "Stratford."
The bricks of which "Stratford" was built are
said to have been a gift from Queen Anne. Ann
Pope, daughter of the first Nathaniel Pope, mar-
ried John Washington, who emigrated from Eng-
land and was the great-grandmother of George
Washington.
69
Louisville's First Families
Of the three Popes who came to Louisville
only one, William Pope, remained. Benjamin
Pope removed to Bullitt county; Jane Pope
Helm and her husband stayed only a year and
then settled in Elizabethtown, establishing "Helm
Place," which remained in the possession of the
family until a few years ago.
It is recounted that in the year which the
Helms spent in Louisville, then a most unhealthy
place, they lost three small children by disease.
William Pope had married in Virginia, Penelope
Edwards, a daughter of Hayden Edwards, of
Farquier county, who removed to Bourbon
county, Ky., to found a large and wealthy family.
William and Penelope Pope had eight children,
four sons and four daughters, and there are a
number of descendants in Louisville. One
daughter, Penelope, was the heroine of an inter-
esting pioneer romance, and she was also one of
three generations of Penelopes who were mar-
ried very young, two at the age of 1 4, who were
mothers at 15, and one married at 13, the
mother of two children at 15. Coming down the
Ohio river on their way to the falls of the Ohio,
Col. William Pope and his family encountered
a young soldier of the Revolution, Lieut. Col.
William Oldham, and a warm friendship sprang
up between Col. Pope and Oldham, who made
part of the trip v/ith the Pope family. Lieut.
70
Pope
Col. Oldham was much attracted to Penelope,
the young daughter of his friend, and announced
his intention of coming back to claim her for
his bride, which he did three years later. Old-
ham was killed by Indians at St. Clair's defeat
in 1791. The marriage of Penelope Pope Old-
ham, a widow, to Henry Churchill, and of her
daughter, Abigail Oldham, to Samuel Churchill,
brother of Henry, was recounted in the sketch
of the Churchill family. The incident of mother
and daughter marrying brothers had occurred be-
fore in the Pope family, for Hesterton Netherton
Pope, after the death of Worden Pope, married
Lynaugh Helm, a brother of Thomas Helm, who
married her daughter, Jane Pope.
William Pope was one of the original trustees
appointed by the Virginia Legislature to estab-
lish the town of Louisville in May, 1 780; he made
the survey of the town to carry out the plan
of dividing the forfeited Connolly land into lots
to be sold at $30 an acre; he was a justice of the
peace in 1 785. William Pope was a veteran of
the Revolution, as was his brother, Benjamin,
and in 1 780 was made Lieutenant Colonel of the
Louisville militia, to become Colonel of the same
organization in April, I 784. William Pope and
his family settled on the Bardstown road not far
from the city limits, the house standing on what
is now the country place of Mrs. Harry Bishop.
71
Louisville's First Families
The old Pope cemetery was on this farm, and a
handsome monument stands there to mark the
graves of William Pope, Jr., and his wife,
Cynthia Sturgess.
In the East End there are three parallel streets,
William, H and Pope streets, which make a last-
ing tribute to the memory of Col. Pope as an
early surveyor of the town.
William Pope, Jr., and his wife, Cynthia
Sturgess, had a large family, their sons and
daughters marrying into families of prominence
and social position, but there are few of their
descendants left in Louisville. Henrietta Pope
married Thomas Prather Jacob, and their home
was for many years on the northeast corner of
Fourth and Breckinridge. They have two sons
living, Donald Jacob, who married Hallie Louise
Burge, and John I. Jacob, of Louisville and Paris.
Another son, the late Rev. Thomas Prather
Jacob, has two children, Etta Pope Jacob cmd
James Baird Jacob, who live with their mother,
who was Martha Baird. Henry Pope, who
married Alice Miller, has a daughter, Anna, Mrs.
E. C. Newbold, who makes Louisville her home.
Alexander Pope married Martha Fontaine and
had five children, two sons, Henry and Fontaine,
who were never married, and both were killed
in duels; three daughters, Penelope Pope, who
married her cousin, William Prather; Martha
72
Pope
Pope, who married her cousin, Charles Pope, son
of WilHam and Cynthia Pope, and after his death
married the Rev. Edward P. Humphrey (her
only child was Judge Alexander Pope Humph-
rey), and Maria Pope, who married Allen P.
Elston. The Elstons had a daughter, Fanny, who
married Edward Payson Quigley, the mother of
Eliza Quigley, Mrs. Bethel B. Veech, and of three
other children who do not live in Louisville.
The numerous descendants of Penelope Pope,
and William Prather were mentioned in the
sketch of the Prather family.
The home of Alexander Pope, member of the
Kentucky Legislature, prominent lawyer and man
of affairs, stood on the south side of Jefferson
street, between Sixth and Seventh, with a front-
age of about 200 feet and extending back to
Green street. Alexander Pope bought the prop-
erty in 1 805, and Judge Alexander Pope
Humphrey inherited it from his mother, who was
Martha Pope. Judge Humphrey was born in the
old Pope home and still owns a piece of prop-
erty on the block, a part of which was the lawn
on the Sixth-street side of the house, retaining
it for its association, and oddly enough the win-
dows of his law ofHce in the Inter-Southern over-
look the site of the Pope house, on which is
now built a row of shops.
73
Louisville's First Families
The Pope men were antagonists of Henry
Clay and strong supporters of Andrew Jackson,
and a tradition of the Popes tells of the caucus
held in Alexander Pope's law office, which stood
in the side yard of his home on Jefferson street,
at which Andrew Jackson was brought forward
as a candidate for the Presidency in 1824. When
President Jackson visited Louisville he was de-
lightfully entertained by the Pope families.
Penelope Pope, one of the four daughters of
William and Penelope Pope, is the only one who
has descendants here. By her first marriage to Col.
William Oldham she had three children. Judge
John Pope Oldham, of the Louisville Circuit
Court, long prominent here; Major Richard Old-
ham, of the United States Army, and Abigail
Oldham, who married Samuel Churchill. Judge
John Pope Oldham married Malinda Talbot;
their daughter, Susan Oldham, married Horace
Hill, and was the mother of several children.
Lily Hill married William Paca Lee and was the
mother of Linda Lee, now Mrs. Thomas, and
of Jouett Lee, Mrs. William Wallace, of Boston,
who so frequently visits here.
Major Richard Oldham married Eliza Martin,
daughter of Major Thomas Martin, U. S. A.,
having a son, George Oldham, who married
Harriet Josephine Miller, daughter of John Adam
Miller. Alfred Violett Oldham, for many years
74
Pope
Clerk of the City Court, is the only descendant
of Major Oldham in the city.
From the marriage of Penelope Pope Oldham
to Henry Churchill and from the marriage of her
daughter, Abigail Oldham, to Samuel Churchill,
several of Louisville's most influential families
trace their lineage, the Ballards, the Humphreys,
the Churchills, the Jungbluths, the Peters and
others, all mentioned in the Churchill sketch.
Two sons of William and Penelope Pope,
prominent men of their day, were John Pope and
Nathaniel Pope, but they have no descendants
in Louisville.
While Benjamin Pope and his wife, Beheath-
land Foote, settled in Bullitt county, near
Shepherdsville, Benjamin Pope, a captain in the
Revolution, was active in the shaping of the city's
history. He was an ensign in Capt. James Pat-
ton's militia, and assisted in the building of Fort
Nelson. He was one of Louisville trustees in
1 783. Among the trustees of Louisville elected
in 1 809 were Benjamin Pope's son, Worden,
and William Pope's son, Alexander Pope.
Worden Pope was one of three sons of
Benjamin and Beheathland Pope. George and
Benjamin Pope continued their residence in
Bullitt county, while Worden Pope became a
prominent citizen in Louisville. He was County
Clerk for many years and was succeeded by his
75
Louisville's First Families
son, Edmund Pendleton Pope, and later by his
son, Curran Pope, the clerkship remaining in the
Pope family for over sixty years.
Elizabeth Taylor Thruston, daughter of Col.
John Thruston, was the wife of Worden Pope,
and there were thirteen children of this mar-
riage. However, only three sons of the family
are forefathers of Louisville people: Patrick
Henry Pope, who married Sarah Lawrence
Brown; Edmund Pendleton Pope, who married
Nancy Johnson, daughter of Col. James Johnson;
Col. Curran Pope, of the Union army, a West
Point graduate, killed at the Battle of Perryville,
who married Matilda Prather Jacob, daughter of
John 1. Jacob and Ann Overton Fontaine.
Patrick Henry Pope was the father of
Edmonia Pope, who married Dr. William H.
Gait, the mother of Misses Urith and Ellen Gait;
and of Ellen E. Pope, who married Dr. John
Thruston, the mother of Mrs. Sarah Thruston
Hughes, and of Mary Anna Pope, who mar-
ried George Nicholas, whose offspring is set down
in the sketch of the Prather family. There were
two other children who have no descendants
here.
Edmund Pendleton Pope was the father of
Judge Alfred Thruston Pope, legislator and
jurist, who married his cousin, Mary Tyler Pope,
daughter of Col. Curran Pope. Dr. Curran Pope
76
Pope
and Alfred Thruston Pope are the only children
of Judge Alfred Thruston and Mary Tyler Pope,
and live in their parents' old residence on Wal-
nut street. Another son of Edmund Pendleton
Pope is Brig. Gen. J. Word en Pope, U. S. A.,
retired, whose home is in Denver. Gen. Pope
was at one time quartermaster general of the
army, and was for a time commandant of the
disciplinary barracks at Ft. Leavenworth. His
son, Worden Pope, spent the autumn in Louis-
ville at Camp Taylor in the F. A. R. D., and
was a candidate officer in the artillery school
when the armistice was signed.
Mary Tyler Pope, the mother of Dr. Curran
Pope and Alfred Thruston Pope, was the only
child of Col. Curran Pope, with descendants
here.
77
"FARMINGTON", THE SPEED HOME
A sketch made from a photograph used to illustrate Hay
and Nickolay's "Life of Lincoln". Some years before the
war, Lincoln made an extended visit to the Speeds at the old
home, "Farmington", which was built about 1810.
The Speed Family.
THE recurrence of the given names of James
and John in the Speed family, generation
generation, is a striking point in the study
of the Speed genealogy. It was a John Speed,
son of James Speed, who founded the Louis-
ville family just at the beginning of the Nine-
teenth century, and who built in 1810 the historic
home of the Speeds — "Farmington" — five miles
from the courthouse, out on the Bardstown road.
Capt. James Speed, son of John Speed and
Mary Taylor, was born in Mecklenburg county,
Va., married Mary Spencer, of Charlotte county,
served in the Revolution, and In 1 782 came to
Kentucky. In that year his son, John Speed,
afterward Judge Speed, of Louisville, was ten
years old. Capt. Speed, with his wife and six
children, crossed the Wilderness road and settled
near Danville. One son, Thomas Speed, moved
to Bardstown, but was in business at Shepherds-
ville with his brother, John Speed, who, inherit-
ing farm land from his father's handsome estate
in 1 800, established himself in Jefferson county.
John Speed served in the United States forces in
1 79 1 against the Indians.
"Farmington" in Judge John Speed's life was
the scene of lavish hospitality extended not only
81
Louisville's First Families
to kinsmen and friends, but even to an army,
for, it is said, that the volunteers for the War of
1812, passing "Farmington," were entertained
in entire companies and even larger bodies of
men.
Judge Speed was twice married, his first wife
being Abby LeMaster, whose two daughters
were never married; his second wife was Lucy
Gilmer Fry, one of the daughters of Joshua Fry
and Peachy Walker, a descendant of Dr. Thomas
Walker, the earliest explorer in Kentucky, and a
sister of Mary Ann Fry, who married William
Christian Bullitt.
Lucy Gilmer Fry came to Kentucky with her
parents, who settled in Mercer county, and it
was an odd coincidence of her marriage that
like her husband she was just ten years old when
her family immigrated to the new country. Her
middle name, Gilmer, has proven a favorite with
the Speeds, and it occurs in several branches of
the family today. To John and Lucy Speed
eleven children were born, and at a gathering of
their offspring in 1881, at a Fourth of July pic-
nic, 107 members of the Speed family in Louis-
ville attended.
It was to "Farmington" that Abraham Lincoln
came before the Civil War to visit his friend,
Joshua F. Speed, the fifth son of Judge Speed.
The friendship, which was one of Lincoln's
82
speed
strongest attachments, was the result of a meet-
ing in Springfield, 111., where Joshua Speed spent
seven years in his early manhood. He became
one of Louisville's foremost business men, and
his wife, Fanny Henning, of fine Virginia stock,
shared her husband's popularity. She was the
sister of James W. Henning, with whom her hus-
band was in partnership in the real estate busi-
ness. She had no children.
The old home of Joshua F. Speed was "Cold
Spring," on the road from the city to "Farming-
ton." Remodeled and with numerous additions
the old house is incorporated in the present home
of Mrs. Samuel C. Henning, near Cherokee Park.
Mrs. Henning is not a Speed, but her brother,
Calvin Morgan Duke, who lives in Ohio, mar-
ried Jennie Speed, daughter of George Keats
Speed and Jennie Ewing, and granddaughter of
Major Philip Speed. The late Samuel C. Henning
was a nephew of Fanny Henning Speed.
Seven children of Judge John Speed's family
of eleven children have descendants here:
James Peachy, William Pope, Susan Fry, Philip
J. Smith and Martha B. Speed. James Speed,
born in 1812, was Attorney General in Lincoln's
cabinet, was a widely known lawyer, partner of
Chancellor Henry Pirtle, and was mustering of-
ficer for the United States army in the Civil War.
All the Speeds were loyal Unionists. James
83
Louisville's First Families
Speed married Jane Cochran, daughter of John
Cochran, and had a hospitable home at Sixth and
Walnut. They had a country home on the site
of "Campo Bello," the home of John M. Ather-
ton, near Cherokee Park.
James Speed served in the Kentucky Legisla-
ture and was a member of the faculty of the law
department of the University of Louisville.
James and Jane Speed had six sons, three of
whom live in Louisville: John Speed, who mar-
ried Aurore Combs, father of James Speed, who
married Jane Barker; and Charles Speed, who
married Eliza Homire, and has two daughters
here, Bessie and Helen Speed; and of James
Speed, who married Hattie Morton, father of
Hallie, Mrs. Karl Harris, and of Nellie, Mrs.
Edward Ream. In this branch of the family, as
in many of the others,' there are children and
grandchildren living, but not in the city of Lou-
isville, to which these sketches are confined.
James Speed, whose wife is Jane Barker, and
who is frequently called the "bird man," com-
piled the material for the book, "James Speed, a
Personality," privately printed by Hattie Bishop
Speed after the death of her husband, James
Breckinridge Speed, who had collected a great
deal of material, and a number of papers and
letters with the idea of publishing a life of his
uncle, James Speed.
84
speed
Peachy Speed named for her ancestress,
Peachy Walker, married Austin Peay, and her
daughter, EHza Peay, married Col. John H. Ward.
Ossian Ward, who married Mabel Prettyman,
and John Hardin Ward, who married Letty Lee
Peter, are her only grandchildren in Louisville.
Visiting here at present is another granddaughter,
Frances Hartwell, of Cambridge, Mass., daughter
of Alice Peay and Dr. Samuel Hartwell.
William Pope Speed, named for Col. William
Pope, the pioneer, married three times, and by
his second wife, Mary Ellen Shallcross, had one
son, James Breckinridge Speed, the successful
banker and capitalist, who married Cora Coffin,
of Cincinnati, having two children, Olive Speed,
who married Frederic M. Sackett, and William
Shallcross Speed, who married Virginia Perrin.
J. B. Speed married a second time, his widow
being Hattie Bishop Speed.
Susan Fry Speed married Benjamin O. Davis,
of Boston, who located in Louisville and was
partner of William H. Pope in the Pope-Davis
Company. Their daughter, Lucy Gilmer Davis,
married J. Edward Hardy, and is the mother of
Charlotte Hardy, Mrs. Charles Pettet Robinson,
of Lucy Hardy, Mrs. T. C. Hobbs, of William B.
Hardy, who married Julia Robinson; of the Rev.
Frank Hardy and of Kate W. Hardy, who mar-
ried Gen. J. M. Califf. Kate Davis married
85
Louisville's First Families
Dexter Hewett and was the mother of Leonard
Hewett, who married Margaret Fink, and of
Henry Hewett, who married Bertha Cooper.
Jane Lewis Davis married Dr. Douglas Morton
and is the mother of Edward Davis Morton, who
married Austine Barton (their children are
Henrietta Barton Morton and Susanne Speed
Morton, the latter, aged five weeks, being the
youngest member of the Speed family) ; of Dr.
David Cummins Morton, who married Mary
Ballard, their children, Thruston, Jane and
Rogers Morton, are descended from the Clarks,
Churchills and Popes, as well as the Speeds) and
of Lewis D. Morton, who married Mary Marple.
Major Philip Speed, born in 1819, served in
the Federal army as paymaster. His wife was
Emma Keats, a niece of John Keats, the poet.
Their home was on Walnut street, near Eighth
street, and they entertained extensively. They
lived afterwards on First street, rearing a large
family. Their daughter, Mary Speed, married
Enos Tuley, the mother of Philip Speed
Tuley, who married Lida Swope; of Dr. Henry
Enos Tuley, who married Ethel Brown Engel-
bach; of Thomas Speed Tuley, who married
Betty Watkins.
Ella Keats Speed married Thomas Crutcher,
and was the mother of Emma Keats Crutcher,
who married James Gardner; of Thomas B.
86
speed
Crutcher, who married Pearl Robb; of Mary
Crutcher, who married Will Parker; of Philip
Speed Crutcher, who married Anna Hall.
Alice Speed married Harry P. McDonald, and
has a daughter, Fanny S. McDonald.
Thomas A. Speed married Amelia Harrison
(now Mrs. Edgar J. Levey) , and was the father
of Meta duPont Speed, Mrs. Guy Warren, and
Mary Tuley Speed, Mrs. Sam Young Bingham.
J. Smith Speed married Elizabeth Williamson,
and there were no children of this marriage; later
he married Susan Philips, and their oldest child,
named Elizabeth Williamson Speed, married
Richard Jouett Menefee, and was the mother of
Margaret, Mrs. James Ross Todd, of Richard H.
Menefee, who married Edith Norton, and of
three other sons who do not make Louisville their
home.
Joshua Speed, who married Carrie Nicholson,
is the only one of J. Smith Speed's four sons
located here. His children are: Evarts Speed,
who married Mildred Vaughan; Susan Philips
Speed and Abby Nones Speed.
Martha B. Speed, the tenth child of John and
Lucy Speed, married Thomas Adams, and was
the mother of Gilmer Speed Adams, who mar-
ried Lettie Robinson.
Major Thomas Speed, Revolutionary soldier,
the elder brother of Judge John Speed, whose
87
Louisville's First Families
home was "Cottage Grove," at Bardstown, has
several descendants in the city. By his second
marriage to a widow, Mary McElroy Allen, he
had a son, Thomas Spencer Speed. Thomas
Spencer Speed married, first, Sarah Whitney
Sparhaw, and their son was Thomas Speed, one
of Louisville's finest citizens. He was a leading
lawyer and for years clerk of the Federal Court.
His wife was Lucy Buckner Speed, and for years
their home was on Fourth street opposite Cen-
tral Park. Mary Whitney Speed, a daughter,
lives here. In her possession is the Speed Bible,
in which eight generations have been entered.
Thomas Speed's "Records and Memorials of the
Speed Family" is a prized possession in the
American homes of the Speeds.
By a second marriage to Margaret Hawkins,
Thomas Spencer Speed had three children,
Austin P. Speed, whose widow, Georgia Mc-
Campbell Speed, lives in the city; Canby Speed,
who married Emma Fullinwider, the father of
Mary Louise, Margaret and Emily Speed, and
Capt. William Speed, whose wife was Helen Hart-
hill; and of Louise Speed, who makes her home
with her three nieces.
The Speeds trace their lineage from John
Speed, the historian and geographer of the Eliza-
bethan age.
88
W»wi>i<nW''l»'t'>'i|il'''"'%l''Oi«^»«*'''0^Xft'i>'f»'l''''*i^'''''l"''''^^^
THOMAS JOYES
Sketched from a portrait o^vned by this distinguished
citizen's grandson. Chapman C. Joyes.
Thomas Joyes was the eldest son of Patrick Joyes, founder
of the Louisville family, was a noted linguist, fought in
early wars, and was identified with the social and political
life of old Louisville.
The foyes Family.
IT was after only three years in America that
Patrick Joyes, of Galway, Ireland, cast his lot
with the pioneers, reaching Louisville in the
year 1 784. This Irish gentleman, after complet-
ing his education in France and Spain, lived for
some time in France, and with his wife, Anne
O'Gara, of Ireland, sailed from Bordeaux and
took up his residence in Philadelphia. Making a
business trip to the Falls of the Ohio, he decided
to settle here, and his first home, on the north-
east corner of Sixth and Main, remained in the
possession of the family for 99 years.
The home of Anne and Patrick Joyes was
famed for the hospitality of colonial days, so lit-
tle understood by the most genial host of the
present, with parties of friends and later of kins^
men, arriving on horseback and by stage coach
from Virginia and the Central Kentucky settle-
ments, assured of hearty welcome. Those w^ere
the days of the trundle beds and of huge bed-
rooms accommodating two or more of the old
four posters, one of which slightly crowds the
sleeping apartments of today. The style of
entertaining continued in the Joyes family to
the time when horseback rides were replaced by
journeys on steam cars. In 1892, at the coun-
91
Louisville's First Families
try home of Patrick Joyes II, near Shelbyville,
called "Oxford" for his grandfather's boyhood
home in Ireland, lavish hospitality was the echo
of the century before. It was at "Oxford" that
the second Patrick Joyes, with his family, spent
the last twelve years of his life.
The Joyes family is entirely distinct from the
family of Joyce, whose name is pronounced the
same way, and, in fact, with the exception of an
army officer, who emigrated from Galway much
later than the Louisville settler, there are no other
Joyeses in the States beside the descendants of
Patrick and Anne Joyes, and comparatively few
of them.
Two sons and three daughters were born to
the pioneer couple at the home at Sixth and
Main. All married and lived in either Louis-
ville or Jefferson county. Thomas Joyes, born
in 1 789, the elder son, is said to have been the
oldest male white child born within the city
limits. Like other patriotic citizens of his time,
he had ample opportunity for military service,
figuring in the Wabash Campaign of 1812, and
with the rank of captain fought with the 1 3th
Kentucky militia at the Battle of New Orleans.
He was a surveyor and spent part of his young
manhood in the office of the county clerk. He
was sent to the Kentucky Legislature several
times.
92
J o y e s
He was one of the Louisville citizens to be
pallbearer at the re-interment of Daniel Boone's
body at the Frankfort cemetery in 1845.
Thomas Joyes was noted as a linguist, inherit-
ing the gift from his father, who spoke French,
Spanish and German fluently. To these his son
added several Indian dialects,, and it was of him
that Judge Fortunatus Cosby said he believed
if Tom Joyes was shut up over night in the
room with a Russian he would be in full com-
mand of the language by break of day. His
early holdings were Jacob's Park, then Burnt
Knob, a farm of over 300 acres, and the major
portion of Towhead Island (the Guthrie heirs
and the widow of the Rev. John Norton owned
a small part of the island). Burnt Knob was sold
by Patrick Joyes II to the city for park purposes
when Mayor Charles Jacob was in office.
Thomas Joyes married Judith Morton Ven-
able, daughter of Judge Joseph Venable, of
Shelbjrvrille, and had one child, Patrick Joyes,
born in 1826, at his grandfather's home on Main
street. He was educated at Centre College and
was a graduate of Harvard Law, was a public-
spirited citizen and one of the first presidents of
the Y. M. C. A. He was also the first president
of the Charity Organization, now the Associated
Charities, served on the board of the Cook
93
Louisville's First Families
Benevolent Fund Home for the Aged, and was
an elder in the First Presbyterian church.
Patrick Joyes married Florence Coleman, a
great beauty and a greatly beloved woman,
daughter of Chapman Coleman and his wife,
Anna Mary Crittenden. Their hospitable home
was on Second street, next door to Christ Church
Cathedral House. They were the parents of six
children. Their daughter, Anna Mary Joyes,
married Haiden Trigg Curd, the mother of Flor-
ence Joyes Curd; Mrs. Percy N. Booth, who
has two children, Florence Joyes and Alexander
Gait Booth; of Pattie Curd, Mrs. Albert Hueling
Davis, of Jacksonville, the mother of Albert
Hueling Davis, Jr. ; of Lieut. Joyes Curd, United
States Air Service, recently returned from France
and now at a rest camp in the Catskills. Lieut.
Curd was gassed while on duty over there.
Chapman C. Joyes married Sallie Swope,
daughter of Ben L. Swope, and is the father of
Janet Staines Swope and of Thomas Swope, who
has just been released after two years' military
service.
Capt. Morton Venable Joyes, Judge Advo-
cate's Department, Washington, married Caro-
line Hancock Barr, daughter of Judge John W.
Barr, and is the father of Lieut. Watson Joyes,
U. S. Engineers, in France, of Preston Pope
Joyes, who married Nina Harlan Bingham, the
94
J o y e s
father of Nina and Preston Pope Joyes, of
Florence Coleman Joyes, II, and of Morton V.
Joyes, Jr.
Florence Coleman Joyes I, and Patrick Joyes,
Jr., make their home with their sister, Mrs. Curd,
on First street, and another brother. Dr. Critten-
den Joyes, who married first Lida Robinson,
daughter of Worthington Robinson, and later
married Almeda Griggs, of Texas, lives in Fort
Worth and is the father of one child, Mary Griggs
Joyes.
Catherine Joyes, daughter of Patrick and
Anne O'Gara, married William McGonigale, and
was the mother of John McGonigale, of the
old surveying and real estate firm of Henning,
McGonigale & Hobbs. He married Josephine
Miller Oldham, widow of George Oldham, and
his children are William J. McGonigale, Florence
Joyes McGonigale and Mary McGonigale.
Nancy Joyes married Thomas Johnson, of
Jefferson county, and was the mother of Thomas
Johnson, who married a sister of E. D. Standi-
ford.
Thomas Johnson III married Betty Brooks,
the father of Brooks Johnson, of Edward Led
Johnson and of Etta Brooks Johnson, Mrs.
Edward C. Tyler.
Elizabeth Joyes married William H. Sale and
was the mother of William H. Sale, who mar-
95
Louisville's First Families
ried Delia Nagle, father of Delia Sale, Appeline
Joyes Sale and of Hewett Sale, of Chattanooga
and Louisville. Another grandchild is Betty Sale
Reese, widow of Edward Reese, whose father
was Charles Sale.
John Joyes, the youngest child of Patrick and
Anne Joyes, was born in 1 799, was educated at
St. Mary's College, studied and practiced law,
was the second Mayor of Louisville, and City
Judge from 1835 to 1854. He married Harriet
Lanier, daughter of Major Thomas Martin Lanier,
distinguished soldier of the Revolution. His
daughter, Stella Joyes, married James A. Mc-
Afee, of pioneer family, and was the mother of
Annie McAfee, who married Robert Dulaney,
and has one son, Woodford Dulaney, recently re-
turned from service overseas, and of Leal Mc-
Afee.
Judge Joyes' daughter, Susan Joyes, married
Major Edward P. Byrne, of the Confederate
Army, and her daughter, Harriet, married Hea-
ton Owsley, and was the mother of Edna
Owsley, Mrs. Frederic Hill, of Chicago, and of
John Owsley, of New Haven, Conn., whose wife
was Helen Hall.
A son, Clarence Joyes, married Mary Riddle
and has a son, William Joyes, who makes St.
Louis his home. Judge Joyes' other sons were
gallant soldiers in the Confederate army: Capt.
96
J 0 y e s
Erskine Joyes, who was killed in action, attached
to Second Kentucky Regiment; Lieut. John
Joyes, who served under his brother-in-law.
Major Byrne, who commanded a Kentucky
Battalion.
97
eotEMiA <roHNSoN
RICHARD SNOWDEN VEECH
Sketched from a picture made on the day of his wedding to
Mary Louise Nichols. Five of his six children make Louis-
ville their home.
The Veech Family.
JOHN VEECH, born in Ulster, Ireland, in
I 1747, emigrated in his early manhood to
^ settle in Pennsylvania. He was a surveyor
by profession, and colonial records show that he
was making surveys in what is now Jefferson
county as early as December 21,1 785, on a per-
mit from William and Mary College, signed by
Thomas Jefferson.
On his arrival in the colonies, John Veech
joined a Scotch Presbyterian settlement at Union-
town, Pa., and it was there that he married
Agnes (Nancy) Weir. They came to Kentucky
shortly after the Revolution, down the Ohio
river, it is understood, on flat boats to Falls of
the Ohio. Their first child, Alexander Veech,
was born January 27, 1787, in Dutch Station,
one of the historic forts which were refuge for
the pioneers. The first Veech farm was on the
Shelbyville road about a mile above St. Mat-
thews, and some two miles from the old station
and from "Indian Hill," which was the home of
Alexander Veech, and has never passed out of
the family, now being occupied by James Nichols
Veech and his family.
John Veech bought "Indian Hill" (of 324
acres, the old deed states) on December 1 ,
101
Louisville's First Families
1806, from Richard Taylor. The Veech family
kept the property until 1814, when they sold
to Zachary Taylor, son of Richard Taylor,
founder of the Kentucky family. There is a
tradition that when John Veech offered the
Indian Hill farln to Alexauider Veech, the son
refused it because he said it was too far from
his parents' home. It seems that a dense forest
stood between the two farms. However, in
1833, Alexander Veech purchased the Indian
Hill farm which was to be his life-long home.
John and Agnes Veech had five children,
three of whom left descendants, but only two had
families which figure in Louisville life — Alex-
ander Veech and his sister, Sarah Veech, who
married William Garvin. Agnes Veech died in
1811, John Veech in 1817.
Alexander Veech was a youthful Kentucky
volunteer in the War of 1812, fighting in the
Battle of the Thames. From early manhood
he was called Capt. Veech, having commanded
a home-guard which offered defense against
Indian raids. It is interesting to know that the
Veech farm was named Indian Hill because of
the marauders' headquarters located there when
planning an attack upon Louisville. Two fine
springs on the place proved a drawing card
to the Indians when selecting a point for an en-
campment.
102
y e e c h
One of these springs near the Veech home has
furnished drinking water for the family through
several generations. The Indians chose the hill
as a gathering point, and they deadened the
lumber on this prominence as a forest signal to
the braves. "Indian Hill" is on the Brownsboro
road, and the rolling farm-land adjoins the golf
links of the Louisville Country Club, which lies
between the farm eind the river.
Alexander Veech married Olivia Winchester,
daughter of Richard Winchester, pioneer from
Maryland, in May, 1821, at the Winchester
home. Vale of Eden, near L3mdon, afterwards
buying out the other heirs and making it their
home until about 1832, when they took posses-
sion of "Indian Hill." The large white brick
house on "Indian Hill" in which Richard
Snowden Veech was bom in 1833 was added on
to by this member of the family in 1881, when a
wing was built at the side and the main
entrance changed. This house is still occupied
by Veeches.
To Alexander and Olivia Veech were bom
four children, but Richard Snowden Veech was
the eldest child, the only one to leave descend-
ants. Bom at "Indian Hill," when he died in
1918 he had known no other home. Like the
father and grandfather before him, he loved the
land and farmed the acreage around his home,
103
Loui sc i lie' s First Families
after being educated at Centre College. When
the farmers of four counties, Jefferson, Oldham,
Bullitt and Shelby, organized the Farmers and
Drovers' Bank, Richard Veech was made cashier
and was active in its management from 1 868
until 1880, when he became president of the
New Albany and Monon Railroad. While he
was in business in Louisville for some twenty
years, he was best known as the distinguished
horse breeder, and he built up a reputation for
Indian Hill Farm from coast to coast, as the
home of fine trotting stock.
He established the Indian Hill Farm in 1872,
putting at the head of the breeding farm,
Princeps, a descendant of Woodford Mambrino,
who was the most prominent branch of the
Mambrino Chief family, which was at that time
one of the most prominent factors in the trotting
horse world.
While 1878 was the banner year of the
famous stock farm, breeding trotters was a lucra-
tive business there for twenty years and with
the horse interest a picturesque life set in at
Indian Hill. Because the land was very roll-
ing, a half mile straightway dash was used for
training; there were generally from fifty to sixty
brood-mares on the farm.
From 1878 to 1885, particularly, and in other
years, also, prominent business men and horse
104
V e e c h
breeders of the East, from New York, Boston
and Philadelphia, made a practice of forming
private-car parties (usually of two cars) to visit
Louisville before going to the Lexington trot
meeting. Here they would be entertained at
dinner by Richard Veech and by John B. Mc-
Ferran, who at that time owned fine trotting
stock at Glenview Farms. The horse-lovers
would visit the two farms and would attend the
sales which Messrs. Veech and McFerran would
hold in conjunction at Indian Hill or Glenview.
These sales were attended by horse-breeders
from all over the country.
Veech and McFerran belonged to Kentucky's
big six, which included, besides themselves,
Henry Clay McDowell, of Ashland; A. J. Alex-
ander, of Woodford; E. G. Stoner, of Bourbon,
and Lucas Brodhead, of Versailles.
In 1881 Richard Veech acquired the Bear-
grass farm of 700 acres, of which he used a por-
tion for cultivation, with part in pasture and the
remainder set aside for training purposes. This
farm includes the ground upon which Dutch Sta-
tion stood, and is now owned by Bethel B.
Veech, who was associated with his father in
conducting the stock farm from 1882 to 1897.
Bethel Veech has a summer bungalow not far
from the site of the old fort. Another pioneer
fort. Cane Station, stood about midway the In-
105
Louisville's First Families
dian Hill farm, and it is told that in recent
years while plowing a portion of the land a
number of Indian arrowheads were turned up.
An interesting and unusual incident of Richard
Veech's career as a horseman occured in 1918,
the last year of his life. While ill at a hospital
in the city he prepared from memory a pedigree
list of some fifty head of trotting stock, still at
Indian Hill, furnishing a record of each animal
described to him, and, before his death, arrang-
ing a sale of these horses.
Richard Snowden Veech married Mary Louise
Nichols, of Danville, Ky., whose parents were
of Puritan stock from Rhode Island. The six
children of this marriage are living, five of them
in Louisville, the home of one daughter, Mrs.
A. Hunter Kent, being St. Louis.
Elizabeth Veech is the wife of Burwell K.
Marshall, and the mother of Richard Veech
Marshall, of St. Louis, whose wife was Helen
Chauncey, of Olney, 111. ; of Elizabeth and Louise
Marshall, now in France on Red Cross service; of
Sallie Ewing Marshall, the wife of Nicholas
Dosker, and of Burwell K. Marshall, Jr.
Olivia Winchester Veech, Mrs. Kent, has one
daughter, Mary Kent, the wife of Major Manton
Davis and the mother of Olivia Davis.
Bethel B. Veech married Eliza Quigley and
has one daughter, Elston Veech, wife of William
106
y € e c h
Mills Otter, who has two small children, Bethel
and Ann Otter.
Helen Lee Veech is the wife of George Twy-
man Wood and has three sons, George Twyman
Wood, Jr., who married Louise Robertson, of
Washington, and mEikes New York his home,
Richard Veech Wood and Thomas J. Wood, who
is a student at Princeton.
James Nichols Veech married Agnes Ross,
makes Indian Hill his home, and farms as his
father and grandfather before him. He is the
father of Agnes Veech and of John Alexander
Veech, named for John Veech and Alexander
Veech.
Dr. Annie S. Veech, who makes Louisville
her home, has been on duty overseas with the
Red Cross.
Sarah Veech, daughter of John and Agnes
Weir Veech, bom in 1 795, was the bride of
William Garvin, an Irishman from County Derry,
born the same year as she, and emigrating to
this country to settle in Philadelphia for a brief
time before coming to Shelbyville, Ky. Sarah
Veech and William Garvin were married Jan-
uary 2, 1822, at the home of the bride's older
sister, Mrs. Francis Veech Brookey in Shelby-
ville, and on horseback the young couple left
for Glasgow, their wedding journey to the new
107
Louisville's First Families
home being made in the saddle, despite the bitter
weather of mid-winter.
Four children were bom to the Garvins at
their Glasgow home, which they left in 1827 to
locate in Louisville. They bought a home on
Jefferson street, between Fourth and Fifth, and
they became identified with the social life of the
city. William Garvin engaged in the wholesale
dry goods business, and was a successful mer-
chant of Garvin, Chambers & Co. and later of
Garvin, Bell & Co.
In 1852, the Garvins moved further out in
town to a home on Chestnut street, which was
to be the scene of elaborate entertaining for four
generations of the family.
For this home William Garvin found many
beautiful things, objects of art from abroad.
Two marble mantels from Italy, exquisitely
carved and intended for the Chestnut street house
were among the handsome fittings brought from
Philadelphia, through the Erie Canal and over
the mountains in wagons. These mantels are
now in the home of William Garvin's grand-
daughter, Mrs. Crittenden Taylor Collings, on
Spring Drive.
Sarah Veech and William Garvin had three
children, Jane Orr Garvin, Ann Eliza Garvin
and Emmet Garvin. The daughters married
brothers, John and Robert Bell, from Ireland.
108
V
e e c
Jane Orr Garvin and John Bell purchased the
Hunt house (now the Pendennis Club) and this
was their home in the sixties. During the Civil
War, John Bell receiving word that his brother,
Lieut. William Bell, of the Confederate army,
had been wounded, left for the South in
search of him. John Bell was not destined to
find his brother, and stricken ill on a train in
Alabama, died and was buried in that State,
many weeks before his family received news of
his death. Lieut. Bell, fatally wounded at the
Battle of Shiloh, was taken to the home of his
cousin, Samuel Gwyn, at Memphis, v»rhere he
died.
William Garvin lost his life in the steamboat
disaster on the Ohio in 1868, when the United
States and the America collided. His body was
washed ashore, and clasped in his hands was
found the Bible which he had been reading. He
was an elder in the Presbyterian church with
which his family and the Veech family have been
identified in this city.
Ann Eliza Garvin, who married Robert Bell,
inherited the Chestnut street house and lived
there until her death in 1911. Jane Garvin Bell
with her children returned to this house after
the death of her husband, but later lived on
Third street, and at an advanced age she died
there in 1918.
109
Louisville's First Families
Jane and John Bell were the parents of Garvin
Bell, who married Ellen Robinson, and was the
father of Nelchen Bell, Mrs. Alex Gait Barret,
of Louise Bell, Mrs. Howard Lee; of Madeline
Bell, Mrs. Robert F. Vaughan; of Robert Bell,
of Florida, and Francis Bell.
Jane and John Bell's daughter, Mary Jennie
Bell, makes Louisville her home, eind with her,
a niece, Jeannette Garvin Payne, daughter of
Elizabeth Bell and Henry Payne, of George-
town, the sons of this marriage being Thomas
Henry Payne, of Winnipeg, who married Amelia
Brown, a descendant of a sister of William Gar-
vin and John Payne, whose home is New York.
John Stuart Bell and Sarah Francis Bell, both
dead, were children of Jane and John Bell.
Ann Eliza Garvin and Robert Bell had three
children, Annie Garvin Bell, the wife of
Crittenden Taylor Collings, and mother of Edith
Collings Fisk, in France on Red Cross duty, of
Allison Collings, and of Christine, Collings, wife
of William Hall, and with her husband and chil-
dren, Edith and Noel, makes her home at Short
Hills; Catherine Gwyn Bell, widow of Foster
Thomas, who with her son, Garvin Thomas, lives
in France, and Henry Bell, deceased.
Emmet Garvin married Lucy Tomlinson, and
their daughter, Sarah Garvin, is the widow of
General John F. Weston, and is in New York
with her daughters, Marie and Kathleen Weston.
110
EU&£(HlA«
JUDGE BUCKNER THRUSTON
Senator from Kentucky, 1804-1809, retired to become
United States Judge for the District of Columbia, 1809-1845,
appointed by President Madison. He was succeeded in the
Senate by Henry Clay.
Judge Thruston was one of three sons of the Rev. and Col.
Charles Minn Thruston, who came to Kentucky, inheriting
their father's lands in this state.
The Thruston Family.
THE English Thrustons laid great stress on
family records, and as early as the Seven-
teenth century kept a genealogy which
has been handed down from father to son, and
after remaining in Louisville for three generations
is now in the possession of Dr. Charles Minn
Thruston, of Waco, Tex. Thanks to this old
record book the genealogy of the family is un-
usually complete, and the Kentucky family has
not neglected to keep up the tradition chronicling
the history of fighters and lawyers, men of affairs
and of beautiful w^omen.
Col. John Thruston, of the third generation at
Gloucester Point, Va., married Sarah Minn and
had only one son, Charles Minn Thruston, who
was known as the fighting parson of the Revolu-
tion, although he was officially the Rev. and Col.
Thruston. He was educated at William and
Mary College, and studying for the ministry,
went to England to take orders. He moved
from Gloucester Point to the Shenandoah Valley,
and the old church at Berryville, where he
preached, is still standing. His military career
started at the age of twenty, when as a lieutenant
of Provincials he took part in the campaign
113
Louisville's First Families
which resulted in the evacuation of Fort
Duquesne. When the Revolution broke out he
exhorted the Virginia youths to enlist, and at the
head of a regiment joined Washington in New
Jersey.
The Rev. and Col. Thruston married, first,
Mary Buckner, by whom he had three sons —
John, Buckner and Charles Minn Thruston, to
whom he left his lands in Kentucky. He miar-
ried a second time Ann Alexander, and removed
to Tennessee and later to Louisiana, where he
lived on a plantation until his death, in 1812.
John Thruston and Charles Minn Thruston
came to Louisville, while Buckner Thruston set-
tled in Lexington. John Thruston came west as
a lad of 1 6 to fight under Gen. George Rogers
Clark in the Illinois regiment. He served in the
campaigns against Kaskaskia and St. Vincents
(Vincennes), with the rank of cornet. He re-
ceived in 1831 a grant of 2,666 acres of land in
Illinois under the Virginia act of 1779, which
provided that the volunteers (officers and sol-
diers), who served through the campaign which
reduced the British forts in Illinois, should receive
remuneration in land.
John Thruston, who came to Louisville in
1 789, married his cousin, Elizabeth Thruston
Whiting, and their home was "Sans Souci,"
which stood on the site of "Hayfield," the home
114
Thruston
of Mrs. Robert Tyler. They had ten children,
but of these only two are ancestors of Louis-
ville folk, Elizabeth Taylor Thruston, who mar-
ried Worden Pope, of the pioneer family, and
Charles Minn Thruston, who married Eliza
Sydnor Cosby, daughter of Judge Fortunatus
Cosby, and his wife, Mary Ann Fontaine.
After the death of John Thruston, his widow
married Capt. Aaron Fontaine, the grandfather
of her son's wife.
Elizabeth Taylor Thruston and Worden Pope
had three sons. Patrick Henry Pope married
Sarah Lawrence Brown, and was the father of
Edmonia Pope, who married Dr. William Gait,
their children being Ellen Gait and Urith Gait;
of Ellen E. Pope, who married Dr. John Thrus-
ton; of Mary Anna Pope, who married George
Nicholas, and was the mother of George Nicholas
and Pope Nicholas.
Edmund Pendleton Pope married Nancy John-
son, and was the father of Judge Alfred Thrus-
ton Pope, who married his cousin, Mary Tyler
Pope, their children being Dr. Curran Pope and
Alfred Thruston Pope. Mary Tyler Pope was
the daughter of Col. Curran Pope and Matilda
Prather Jacob.
Charles Minn Thruston, born in 1 793 at Sans
Souci, was a celebrated criminal lawyer in Lou-
isville. He and wife, Eliza Sydnor Cosby, had
15
Louisville's First Families
a large family, and there are in Louisville descen-
dants of three of their children. Their daughter,
Mary Thruston, married Dr. Lewis Rogers, the
well-known physician, and was the mother of
six children. Jane Farrar Rogers married
Robert Atwood, her children being Lewis R. At-
wood, Lizzie Atwood, Mrs. Oscar Beckmann,
William Atwood, who married Nellie Stark. Her
daughter, Mamie Atwood, married Tom Knott,
and was the mother of Lewis Atwood Knott, of
New York.
Eliza Thruston Rogers married Dr. B. M.
Messick, and their only child in Louisville is
Martha M. Messick. Anne Thruston Rogers,
who married Harvey Yeaman, wrs the mother
of Dr. Rogers Yeaman. Harriet Rogers is Mrs.
George Gaulbert, the mother of Carrie Gaul-
bert, Mrs. Attilla Cox.
Dr. John Thruston married Ellen Pope and
was the father of Mrs. Sarah Thruston Hughes,
whose children are: Commander William Neal
Hughes, U. S. N. ; Major Thruston Hughes, U.
S. A. ; Anabel, Mrs. Garnett Zorn ; Katherine
Fontaine, Mrs. Walton Maxey, of Beaumont,
Texas, and of Dr. Charles Minn Thruston, of
Waco, Texas.
Anne Blake Thruston married William J.
Johnson, of the pioneer family, and was the
mother of Charles Thruston Johnson, who mar*
116
Thruston
ried first Sally Ward Danforth, and second. Miss
Stuart; and of Lizzie Johnson, who married
George Breed, and was the mother of Lilla
Breed, of Louisville, and George and Edwin
Breed, of Boston.
John Thruston, the second son of Charles
Minn and Eliza Thruston mentioned above, was
a midshipman in the navy at 1 6, but gave up
his commission, returning to Louisville on ac-
count of his father's illness. He became a promi-
nent Louisville physician, and during the Civil
war was in charge of the Military Hospital at
Eighth and Green for nine months.
His brother, Charles Minn Thruston, was a
deputy in the county clerk's office, then held
by his cousin. Col. Curran Pope. Later he was
elected clerk of the county court, filling the posi-
tion for three terms. He made his residence for
a short time in New York, and returned to be
re-elected to his former office by a great ma-
jority. He was a great political leader and a
man of pleasing personality and wide popularity.
His wife was Leonora Keller. They had no chil-
dren.
Capt. Charles Minn Thruston fought in the
Revolution, at the age of 1 1 , as aide to his
father, the Rev. and Col. Thruston, at the Battle
of Piscataway. In 1 793 he married Gen. George
Rogers Clark's sister, Fanny Clark, after the
117
Loui SD ille' s First Families
death of her husband, Dr. James O'Fallon.
Their home was at Westport. Capt. Thruston
was killed in December, 1800, by Luke, his body
servant, who feared that his master would punish
him for repeated misdemeanors. Capt. Thrus-
ton refused to take Luke on a trip back to Vir-
ginia, and warned him that any misconduct dur-
ing his absence would mean a thrashing. The
slave had not attended to his duties during his
master's absence, and before the return of Capt.
Thruston, ran away. However, one night early
in December, a servant reported to Capt. Thrus-
ton that Luke had been in the kitchen and had
stolen a leg of lamb. Capt. Thruston and his
small son went out to look for Luke, tracking
him by footprints in the snow. When discovered
hiding in a com shock, Luke sprang on his mas-
ter and stabbed him with a carving knife which
he had stolen from the kitchen. Luke was
caught and was hung by verdict of the jury.
Capt. Thruston's widow married her cousin.
Judge Dennis Fitzhugh, and her home stood in
the square between Green and Jefferson, Brook
and Floyd.
Capt. and Mrs. Thruston's son was named
Charles Minn Thruston, but owing to confusion
arising from the name being borne by his cousin,
the son of John Thruston, was called Charles
W. Thruston. He was a successful manufacturer
118
Thruston
and merchant, and his wife was Mary Eliza
Churchill, daughter of Col. Samuel Churchill.
Their daughter, Fanny Thruston, married
Andrew J. Ballard, the lawyer. Fanny Thrus-
ton Ballard was a great beauty and belle, and
died in Vienna in April, 1896, while making a
European trip. On this trip she visited the home
of the early Thrustons, seeing the old manor
house and porter's lodge at West Buckland, Eng-
land, and an old church nearby, where her
ancestors are buried within the chancel.
S. Thruston Ballard and Rogers C. Ballard
Thruston are her sons, the name of the latter
being changed to preserve the family name of
Thruston. S. Thruston Ballard married Sun-
shine Harris, and has one daughter, Mary
Ballard, who married Dr. David Cummins Mor-
ton. The late Charles T. Ballard, who married
Mina Breaux, was the father of Abigail Ballard,
Mrs. Jefferson Stewart; of Charles T. Ballard, U.
S. N.; of Fanny Ballard, Mrs. Charles Homer;
of Breaux Ballard, whose wife was Jane Fish, and
of Mina Ballard, Mrs. Warner L. Jones. The
youngest member of the family is little Frances
Homer.
"Lansdowne," the home of Mrs. and Mrs. S.
Thruston Ballard, at Glenview, bears the name
of the early Virginia home of the Thrustons, at
Gloucester Point.
119
Louisville's First Families
Buckner Thruston settled in Lexington in
1 788, practiced law and was Judge in the State
courts. His wife was Janette January, of Mays-
ville. He was Senator from Kentucky in 1 804,
and retired to become United States Judge for
the District of Columbia, His home from 1 804
was at Cumberland, Md.
Gen. Charles Lee, a great personal friend of
the Rev. and Col. Charles Minn Thruston, left
his library to Buckner Thruston, saying that he
was the only man he knew capable of appreciat-
ing it.
There are descendants, in Louisville, of the
Rev. and Col. Charles Minn Thruston by his sec-
ond wife, Ann Alexander, their daughter, Eloise
Thruston, born 1 792, in Virginia, marrying
Major Edmund Taylor, and settling on Beargrass.
Sarah Courtney Taylor, one daughter, married
John De Colmesnil, and their home on Jef-
ferson street, between Eighth and Ninth, was
long a landmark of that old neighborhood.
Sarah and John Colmesnil's daughter, Courtney
Colmesnil, married John Murphy, of Nelson
county, for years manager of the Gait House,
and has a daughter in Louisville, Mary May
Murphy, widow of Joseph Simmons. She is the
mother of Courtney Simmons, Lily Simmons
Huber, Joseph Simmons and Sarah Thruston
Simmons.
120
Thruston
Sarah Thruston Simmons was instrumental in
organizing the Charles Minn Thruston Chapter,
Children of the Confederacy in Louisville.
121
; •
ZACHARY TAYLOR
Twelfth President of the United States and a Major
General, U. S. Army, from an old photograph in the possession
of Hancock Taylor.
The Taylor Family.
AMONG the most distinguished of the
early settlers in Louisville were the Tay-
lor brothers, Col. Richard Taylor, the
father of Gen. Zachary Taylor, president of the
United States, Hancock Taylor, deputy surveyor
under Col. William Preston, and Capt. Zachary
Taylor, men of finest Virginia stock, who were
prominent actors in the romantic history-making
days before Kentucky was a State.
"Hare Forest," four miles from Orange Court
House, Va., was the early home of the Taylor
family, founded by James Taylor and his wife,
Frances, who came from Carlisle, England, in
the seventeenth century. James Taylor was a
man of affairs, interested in the well being of
the colonies, and owning wide acres in Virginia.
His only son, James Taylor, who was one of
the first surveyor generals, was colonel of Orange
county militia, a Knight of the Golden Horse
Shoe, and a burgess of King and Queen county,
1702-1714. His wife was Martha Thompson, a
daughter of Col. William Thompson, of the
British army, whose father. Sir Roger Thomp-
son, served under Cromwell. After CoL Tay-
lor's death, the House of Burgesses ordered Han-
125
Louisville's First Families
over, Spottsylvania, and Orange counties to pay
one thousand pounds of tobacco to his widow
in recognition of his services in running the
boundaries of these counties. James and Martha
Thompson were the great grandparents of two
presidents of the United States — ^James Madison
and Zachary Taylor. From two sons of James
Taylor II., Col. George Taylor and his wife,
Rachael Gibson, and Zachary Taylor and his
wife, Elizabeth Lee, of the Virginia Lees, are
descended a hundred dozen Kentuckians, and
from them come the numerous members of the
Taylor family in Louisville.
George Taylor was colonel of Orange county
militia and fought in Indian wars; Burgess of
Orange county, 1748-49, 1752-58; member of
Committee of Safety, 1774-75; member of con-
vention in 1775; vestryman of Episcopal church
in King George county; Clerk of Orange county
for many years. He was the father of ten sol-
diers of the Revolution, nine of whom were of-
ficers. James Taylor was sergeant major of
militia, afterward Clerk of Orange county, a posi-
tion formerly held by his father. Lieut.
Jonathan Taylor married Anne Berry, of
Gloucester, Va., and settled in Clark county,
Ky., in 1 789, establishing their home, "Basin
Springs." Edmund Taylor was captain, serv-
ing on the Virginia State Line; he married Cath-
V^6
Taylor
erine Stubbs. Richard Taylor was commodore
of the navy and received a thousand acres of
land in Kentucky from his country in recognition
of his distinguished services. Commodore Tay-
lor lived in Louisville for a number of years be-
fore his death in 1825.
Francis Taylor was appointed a captain, but
was made colonel of regulars in 1779. Lieut.
John Taylor was appointed a midshipman in the
navy and died a British prisoner on the old Jer-
sey prison ship. Major William Taylor served
through the war, married his cousin, Elizabeth
Taylor, came early to Kentucky, and was in Lou-
isville, where he ran a hotel at Second and Main
in 1812. He was very popular, and it is said
that at his hotel the food was cooked and served
in the best old Virginia style. Charles Taylor
was sergeant's mate of the Second Virginia army
and rose to rank of sergeant of regulars of Con-
vention Guards, Reuben Taylor was a minute
man for six years and rose to rank of captain.
The tenth son, Benjamin Taylor, served in the
navy during the war. Practically all of these
men received large grants of lands for military
service in the Revolutionary war.
There are no more picturesque figures in the
winning of the West than the sons of Zachary
Taylor and Elizabeth Lee. Richard Taylor ren-
dered valuable service in the Revolution, and his
127
WILLIAM BERRY TAYLOR
SUSANNAH GIBSON TAYLOR
These portraits of William Berry Taylor and his wife,
Susannah Grayson Harrison Gibson, are owned by their
grandchildren, Betty, Fanny and Robert Mallory, of Crescent
Hill, whose father, the Hon. Robert Mallory, was a member
of Congress and prominent in the social and political life
of his day.
William Berry Taylor was a son of Lieut. Jonathan Taylor,
Revolutionary soldier, and his wife, Anne Berry. Their home
was "Spring Hill" in Oldham county, and from them are
descended many members of the Taylor connection in Louis-
ville.
William Berry Taylor was a cousin and a warm personal
friend of President Taylor, who frequently visited his kins-
people at "Spring Hill."
Notably among the decendants of William Berry Taylor
are Admired Robert Mallory Berry, U. S. N., a grandson, and
Admiral Hugh Rodman, U. S. N., K. C. B., a great-grandson.
Taylor
brother, Hancock Taylor, belonged to Washing-
ton's company of Rangers. Both men stood six
feet two and weighed about 230 pounds. They
made the first trading trip from Pittsburg past
the Falls of Ohio to the mouth of the Yazoo in
1 769, and the same year from Pittsburg in a
canoe made a trip to New Orleans, where they
embarked for Charleston, S. C, walking thence
to the Taylor home at Orange Courthouse.
Hancock Taylor was one of the early deputy
surveyors under William Preston and headed a
party, including Willis Lee and Abraham Hap-
stonstall, known to have made surveys in what
is now Jefferson county, in May, I 774. The
following year Gov. Dunmore, becoming ap-
prehensive for the safety of the surveyors,
ordered their recall, and Hancock Taylor re-
ceived the summons while laying off a tract near
the Kentucky river for Col. William Christian.
He was, however, a victim of the Indians and,
wounded by a shot from a warrior's rifle, was
carried by his companion Hapstonstall to a
point near Richmond, where he died and was
buried by Hapstonstall, who carved his name
on the headstone with tomahawk. Taylor's
dying request was that his papers be carried to
Preston in Virginia.
Hancock Taylor's will left two-thirds of all
his lands lying on Western waters to Hapston-
129
Louisville's First Families
stall and Willis Lee, and the remainder of his
vast estate to his brothers, Col. Richard and
Capt. Zachary Taylor.
Col. Richard Taylor, whose wife was Sarah
Dabney Strother, came from Orange county, Va.,
to settle at Falls of the Ohio in the year of 1 785,
bringing with him his family, including a son,
Zachary, aged nine months. Some biographers
of this same Zachary, more interested in him,
however, as a President of the United States
than as a youthful pioneer, claim that Zachary
was born at "Montebello," the home of sonae
kinsmen where the Taylors had been detained
by illness of some member of their party after
leaving "Hare Forest," the ancestral home of
the Taylor family.
Col. Richard Taylor established his family in
a substantial log house on a farm five miles east
of Louisville, which was known as "Springfield."
Col. Taylor, who had been through the Revo-
lution as a colonel in the First Regiment of Vir-
ginia in the Continental Line, was soon a leader
in affairs in both city and State. He was a mem-
ber of the Convention in Kentucky, 1 792-99,
and helped frame the first and second consti-
tutions of the State; he was one of the two men
selected to have the first courthouse built in Lou-
isville and served on one of the early boards of
130
Taylor
trustees. He was evidently a man of wealth for
he left his family a handsome estate.
Zachary Taylor grew to manhood in the
stirring times of frontier clearing with Indian
fighting as a matter of every-day life. At eight-
een he was a lieutenant in the army and eight
years later he served as a major in the War of
1812. The outbreak of the Mexican war found
him in command of the American forces in
Louisana and Texas, the crowning battle of his
campaign being Buena Vista in 1847. Dissatis-
fied with his treatment by the administration.
Major General Taylor resigned and came to
Louisville, living on a farm on the Brownsboro
road in the months between his retirement from
the army and his election as the twelfth Presi-
dent of the United States. He died in office on
July 9, 1850.
Zachary Taylor was known to the army as
"Old Rough and Ready," because he was ready
for any emergency and took the rough end of
every encounter, but he was also a man of cul-
ture and refinement.
The accompanying sketch of his family places
him as a man of gentle birth and breeding, and
his connections are with the most distinguished
families of Virginia. One who knew him well
described him as a man of great tenderness of
heart, of gentle manner, devoid of self-assertion;
131
Louisville's First Families
a silent man, but one whose dignity impressed
all who came into his presence. Such was the
character of this most distinguished of the Taylor
family, whose name has been on every lip since
the army cantonment named Camp Zachary Tay-
lor to do him honor was established here.
Zachary Taylor married Margaret Markall
Smith, of Maryland, a daughter of Major Walter
Smith, U. S. A. To them were born four chil-
dren: Anne, who married Dr. Robert C. Wood,
a surgeon of the United States Army; Sareih
Knox married Lieut. Jefferson Davis, afterward
President of the Confederacy; Elizabeth mar-
ried Major William Bliss, U. S. A., and later
Philip Dandridge, of Virginia, and the only son
was Gen. Richard Taylor, of the Confederate
army, who visited England after the war and
was given much attention. He moved to New
Orleans, married and had three daughters.
There are in Louisville no descendants of
Zachary Taylor.
Col. Richard Taylor and his wife, Sarah
Dabney Strother, had a large family.
Their son, Hancock Taylor, married Sophia
Hoard and had one son, William
Dabney Strother Taylor, who married Jane Pol-
lock Barbour, and whose son, Hancock Taylor,
a Confederate veteran, lives in Louisville. His
wife was Mary H. Wallace, and their children
132
Taylor
are: Margaret Barbour, who married Judge
Arthur Wallace; Letty Hart, the wife of the Rev.
T. P. Grafton, missionary to China; Mary
Strother and William P. and Helen Wallace, who
married James Quarles, missionary in Argen-
tina.
Hancock Taylor, brother of the President,
married again, his second wife being Annah
Hornsby Lewis. One daughter was Mary Tay-
lor Robinson, who married Archibald Magill
Robinson. Their son, Richard Goldsborough
Robinson, married Laura Pickett Thomas, and
their children here are Eliza Lee Robinson and
Judge Harry Robinson. Another daughter, Mil-
dred Taylor, married John McLean, and their
son, Hancock McLean, was the father of Mrs.
Louis D. Wallace, of Crescent Hill.
Edmund Taylor, the son of Hancock Taylor,
married Lou Barker and was the father of Lewis
Taylor, who lives here. Another son was Major
Joseph Walter Taylor, who served in the Con-
federate Army on Gen. Buckner's staff.
He married Lucy Bate and was the father of
J. B. Taylor and Jennie Taylor. His second wife
was Ellen Bate, and his three daughters, the
Misses Taylor, live on the Brownsboro road.
Another Confederate soldier in the family of
Hancock Taylor was Capt. Samuel Burks Taylor,
who was one of the Confederate officers
133
Louisville's First Families
captured and imprisoned with Gen. John Morgan
in the Columbus, O., penitentiary. It was Capt.
Taylor who scaled the walls and made possible
the escape of the prisoners. He was never mar-
ried.
Elizabeth Taylor, a sister of Gen. Zachary
Taylor, married her cousin, John Gibson Taylor,
and had several children, only one of whom is
known to have a family here. This daughter,
Sarah Taylor, who is buried in the old family
burying ground at Springfield, was the wife of
Col. W. R. Jouett, U. S. A., their children being:
Fred Jouett and Lieut. Landon Jouett. Mar-
garet Dudley, who lives here, is a granddaughter.
John Gibson Tayor, Jr., was a Confederate sol-
dier who was killed in action in one of the Ken-
tucky battles. Other sisters of Gen. Taylor
married prominent men and moved away from
Louisville. •
"Springfield," the Taylor home of 1 785, was
a substantial log house to which a brick addition
was built, and later a brick house was added to
the addition and the log building torn away.
Hancock Taylor, the elder brother of Gen. Tay-
lor, had a home on the Eighteenth-street road,
but bought out the other heirs' interest in the old
place and moved to "Springfield," where he
died. Hancock Taylor was in the tobacco busi-
ness, and as a young man was an Indian fighter.
134
Taylor
"Springfield" is now owned by Dr. John A.
Brady. The monument erected by the govern-
ment in 1 89 1 , in memory of Gen. Taylor, is at
"Springfield" burying ground.
Capt. Zachary Taylor, brother of Hancock
Taylor and Col. Richard Taylor, married Alice
Chew, of the well-known family of that name,
and settled on the forks of Hickman creek, in
what is now Jessamine county. His daughter,
Sarah Taylor, married Richard Woolfolk, a Ken-
tucky pioneer identified with the early history
of Jefferson county. It was he who caught Col.
William Christian in his arms when that pioneer
fell, a victim of the Indians. After the death
of his wife Capt. Taylor came to the Woolfolk
home, in Jefferson county, eight miles from Lou-
isville, on land between Harrod's creek and the
Ohio river.
Samuel Woolfolk, a son of Richard and Sarah
Woolfolk, was a well-known lawyer. His wife
was Carrie Thornton, by whom he had five sons.
Richard Henry Woolfolk, one of these, married
Amanda Enders, of Paducah, and their son,
Junius Woolfolk, lives in this city.
A son of Lieut. Jonathan and Anne Berry
Taylor was William Berry Taylor, born 1 768,
who married Susannah Grayson Harrison Gib-
son, settling in Oldham county, then Shelby
county, in 1 796, on a thousand acres of land
135
Louisville' s First Families
bought from his uncle, Col. Francis Berry. They
built the home, "Spring Hill," the first brick
house in the county, and the home remained in
possession of the family until last year. From
Spring Hill, Gen. Zachary Taylor, with one of
his daughters and with his cousin, Betsy Taylor,
who married Dr. William Willett, of the Bullitt
family, rode on horseback to Frankfort to attend
the first assembly ball, talking their evening
clothes in their saddle bags.
Abraham Hapstonstall, the surveyor, spent
the declining years of his life in the homes of
Hancock Taylor and of William Berry Taylor.
He is buried in the Taylor family burying ground
at "Spring Hill."
Several of the Revolutionary brothers, sons
of Col. George Taylor, were pioneer settlers in
Kentucky, and from time to time their de-
scendants have drifted into Louisville from the
Bluegrass, from Eastern Kentucky and from
the neighboring counties. Among these Ken-
tucky Taylors now in the city are the following:
Mrs. John W. Green, Mrs. Alexander Mc-
Lennan, Mrs, Jack Langhome Brent, Judge
George Brent, Dr. E. R. Palmer, Mr. Edmund
F. Trabue, Miss Alice Trabue, Col. William Col-
ston, Mr. T. P. Taylor, Mrs. E. Polk Johnson,
James Berry, Mrs. Robert Brooke, Miss Ruth Rod-
man, Mrs. Sam Overstreet, Mrs. T. J. Howe, Mr.
136
Taylor
Horace Hurley, Mr. Frank Barbour, Mrs. James
Hegan, Dr. John B. Richardson, Mr. Samuel B.
Richardson, Mrs. Harrison Robertson, Mrs.
Thos. Kennedy Helm, Miss Addie Meriwether,
Mr. Edmund Taylor Meriwether, Mrs. Baylor
Hickman, Mrs. Gilbert Garrard, Mrs. Thomas R.
Gordon, Mrs. Arthur Peter, Mrs. Karl Jungbluth,
Jr., Mrs. J. K. Woodward, Miss Betty Mallory,
Miss Fanny Mallory, Mr. Robert Mallory, Dr.
R. A. Bate, Mr. Virginius Bate, Mrs. Cora Tay-
lor Russell, Edward G. Isaacs, Mrs. Robert Herr,
Mrs. S. E. Frazee, Mrs. Joseph Simmons, Mrs.
Herman D. Newcomb, Mrs. Arthur Peter, Dar-
win Ward Johnson, Mrs. Kate Johnson Lester,
Donald Jacob, John I. Jacob, Wallace Taylor
Hughes, William B. Eagles, Nannie Lee Frayser,
Mrs. Barber Baldwin, Mrs. John Cannon, Dr.
and Mrs. John Taylor, Rebecca Taylor, Sallie
Taylor, Lucy Catherine Taylor, James Hughes
and Mrs. George Grevemeyer. In many in-
stances the members of the Taylor family are
descendants of tw^o branches of the family.
137
"BERRY HILL"
The Bate home at Glenview, built by James Smalley Bate
shortly after 1 800. The house is a splendid example of farm
colonial architecture and is now owned and occupied by Mr.
and Mrs. R. Baylor Hickman.
The Bate Family.
BERRY HILL" was the Virginia home of
James Smalley Bate, and for that reason
the Kentucky pioneer chose that name
for his extensive acreage on the Ohio river,
his estate covering the land which is now the
suburb of Glenview, and the Bate residence be-
ing the Glenview Farms, home of Mr. and Mrs.
Baylor Hickman.
Dr. James Bate, a surgeon, who emigrated
from Yorkshire, England, and settled in St.
Mary's, Maryland, was the father of the Ken-
tucky settler.
Dr. Bate married Susannah Bond, the daughter
of James Bond, whose five sons fought in the
Delaware Blues. The Bates removed to what
is now Martinsburg, W. Va., and it was there
that on attaining his majority James Smalley
Bate married Lucy Moore Throckmorton, grand-
daughter of John Robinson, speaker of the
House of Burgesses, and great granddaughter of
Sir Alexander Spottswood, first Colonial gov-
ernor of Virginia.
When James Smalley Bate and his family
came to Kentucky in 1 789, their first location
was Harmony Landing on the river above Pros-
141
Louisville's First Families
pect. They moved shortly to Falls of Ohio, and
their first home here was a twelve-room log
house on "Berry Hill." The second house was
of brick and stood about five hundred yards from
the third house on "Berry Hill," which was start-
ed shortly after 1 800, and is now the Hickman
home. The house and grounds were planned
and laid out, a composite of the old Bate places
in Maryland and Virginia.
James Smalley Bate was interested in the
civic life of Louisville, and he was one of the
founders of Christ Church Cathedral, and gave
the land on which the church was built. He
died in 1834, leaving a large fortune to his
seven children, each receiving 500 acres of the
estate. James Smalley Bate is buried in the old
Glenview cemetery and here lies his mother,
Susannah Bond Bate, who was born in 1 740.
Dr. James Bate died in Virginia during the Revo-
lution.
The black walnut forest to the side of the
homestead furnished the beautiful wood which
is found in the mantels, and the woodwork and
floors throughout the dwelling. The forest it-
self was uprooted in the Louisville cyclone and
the side of the house was badly damaged also.
According to a tradition in the family, expert
carvers were paid $ 1 50 apiece for the work on the
mantels, which are exquisite in design. The doors
142
Bate
for the house were brought on packmules from
Virginia, and as the house was finished before
the doors arrived, it was necessary to hang
mattresses in the apertures whdn the family took
possession of the house.
The Httle attic room in the cupola, high up
over the front door, is said to have been the
household bank, and here James Smalley Bate
kept the treasure chest with its stock of gold
from which the expenses of the estate were
drawn, and into whose coffers poured the wealth
of this substantial and prosperous landholder,
who did so much to advance agricultural pur-
suits in Jefferson county.
Gerard Bond Bate inherited the Bate home,
"Berry Hill," and he sold it in 1869 to James
C. McFerran, who, with his son, John B. Mc-
Ferran established a famous trotting horse farm
on the Glenview Farms. Later it was the home
of John E. Green, and for some years has been
owned by the Hickmans.
John Throckmorton Bate, who was born in
1809 at Berry Hill, and lived to be eighty-eight
years old, spent his life in that vicinity. In 1834,
the year of his marriage, to Eleanor Anne Locke,
he built "Woodside" within a mile of his father's
home. The house still standing is a splendid
example of the Virginia farmhouse colonial of
white brick. In this house lived three genera-
143
Louisville's First Families
tions of Bates, the last owner in the family being
John Throckmorton Bate, son of Clarence Bate
and Octavia Zantziger, and grandson of John
Throckmorton Bate.
The name of "Woodside" was changed to
"Arden" when the beautiful place was purchased
by Peter Lee Atherton, who continues to make
it his year-around home. Many fine pieces of
mahogany furniture bought for Berry Hill and
Woodside are still in possession of the Bate
family in Louisville. A quantity of the family
silver was lost in a fire a few years ago.
James Smalley Bate and his wife, Lucy Moore
Throckmorton, were the parents of the follow-
ing children: Catherine, James Smalley, Robert,
Susan, Lucy, Gerard Bond and John Throck-
morton Bate.
Catherine Bate married Henry Washington, a
Virginian and close kinsman of George Wash-
ington, who as a very young man left the Old
Dominion for the Kentucky settlements. No other
member of his immediate family ventured this
way, and when one of his descendants was seek-
ing an accurate genealogy of the family it was
necessary to make a trip to Virginia to secure
data from the Washington Bibles.
There are three children of Catherine and
Henry Washington living at Irvington, Ky.
Mary Washington, who married Theodore Mun-
144
Bate
ford, recently celebrated her ninetieth birthday;
Georgiana, who married Richard Hemdon, the
naother of Jesse M. Herndon, of Irvington, and
Bate Washington, whose wife was Mary Helm.
Emmaree Washington, daughter of Bate and
Mary Washington, is the wife of B. Perry
Weaver, of Louisville, and the mother of Ben
Helm Weaver, Burton Perry Weaver and Mary
Washington Weaver.
Glorvine Eugenia Washington, daughter of
Henry and Catherine, married Alfred Harris, and
from her is descended a granddaughter, Cath-
erine Washington Harris, the wife of Dr. Clint
W. Kelly. She is the mother of Dr. Alfred
Harris Kelly, whose wife was Amy Gunn
Snowden before her marriage; Dr. Clint W.
Kelly, Jr., Wager Swayne Kelly and Edwin Par-
son Kelly. Susan Washington, another daughter,
married Dr. Joseph Morrison Tydings, the
Methodist minister, and their son Richard H.
Tydings and his wife, Nell Mansir, with their
four children: Joseph Mansir, Anna Ray,
Richard, Jr., and Mary Avery Tydings, make
Louisville their home.
Lucy Washington married Junius Alexander,
and their son. Dr. Junius B. Alexander, lives
here.
Lucy Bate, who married George Gray, had five
children, but left few descendants. A daughter.
145
Louisville's First Families
Lizzie Gray, married Mann William Satterwhite,
and was the mother of George Satterwhite, who
married Laura Hays, and of Bessie Satterwhite,
the wife of Walter Stouffer, and mother of Walter
Stouffer, Jr.
Mary Gray married Dr. Coleman Rogers, and
their only living child is Mary Rogers, Mrs.
William O. Andrews, of St. Louis, and the
mother of four children. William Gray mar-
ried Nellie Snowden, and has living here one
granddaughter, Eleanor Gray, the wife of
Rudolph C. Krauss. Lucy Gray was never mar-
ried. Ella Gray, one of the four daughters of
Lucy Bate and George Gray, is the widow of
Norboume G. Gray, and has one son, Coleman
Gray, who makes his home in New York.
Gerard Bond Bate, who inherited the home
place, died a bachelor. He was a Harvard
graduate, and a man of great culture and refine-
ment.
John Throckmorton Bate married Eleanor
Anne Locke, and had two sons, Octavius Bate,
who died as the result of an accident while a
student at Centre College, and Clarence Bate,
who was educated at Brown's, a classmate of
EHhu Root and John Hay.
Clarence Bate married Octavia Zantziger,
daughter of Major Richard Zantziger, and his
v/ife, Mary Bullitt. There were four children of
146
Bate
this marriage, three living, Octavius L. Bate, a
bachelor; John Throckmorton Bate, who married
Margaret Mitchell, and Octavia Zantziger Bate,
who is the wife of Dr. Clarence Graves, head
of the Baptist Mission of the South, at Nash-
ville.
John Throckmorton and Margaret Bate have
two children, Margaret, the wife of Allen Ford
Barnes, of San Antonio, and the mother of Mar-
garet Ford Barnes, and John Throckmorton
Bate, Jr., a student of medicine at University of
Virginia.
Susan L. Bond Bate married in August, 1826,
Richard Taylor Robertson, the son of Isaac
Robertson, who came from Glasgow, Scotland,
and his wife Matilda Taylor, daughter of Com-
modore Richard Taylor. The Robertsons left
Louisville to make Brandenburg their home.
They had thirteen children, and from one of
these, a daughter, Susan Eliza Robertson, a num-
ber of Louisville people are descended. She
married her cousin, Richard Alexander Bate, a
son of James Smalley Bate II, and his wife, Vir-
ginia Alexander.
Susan Eliza and Richard Alexander Bate have
a daughter and two sons in the city, Fanny Bar-
bour Bate (Mrs. Theodore S. Drane), Dr.
Richard Alexander Bate, who married Julia
Hornsby Calloway, a descendant of Daniel
147
Louisville's First Families
Boone's companion, Col. Calloway, the Indian
fighter, and Virginius A. Bate, who married
Eliza Johnson.
Lucy Moore Throckmorton Bate, another
daughter married Henry Watts Clark, of Chi-
cago, and James Smalley Bate married Nell
Semple, a cousin, and lives in Henry county.
James Smalley Bate and his wife, Virginia
Alexander, had a family of eight children, and
their home was a part of the Glenview Farms.
The couple lived there, died there, and their
children are making their home on the land.
Two daughters, Lucy and Ellen Bate, married
Major Walker Taylor, Confederate veteran, and
nephew of Gen. Zachary Taylor. From Lucy
Bate Taylor, the first wife, are descended James
Taylor and his sister, Virginia Taylor, who live
on the Bate land on the Brownsboro road.
Ellen Bate Taylor, the second wife, leaves three
daughters, the Misses Taylor, who also live out
on the Brov/nsboro road. Another daughter of
James Smalley and Virginia Bate is Virignia
Alexander Bate, who lives on a portion of the
old farm.
Robert Bate, son of James Smalley Bate and
Lucy Moore Tlirockmorton, married Fannie Bar-
bour, and had four sons, Gerard Bate, a bachelor;
William Bate, who married Lucy Washington;
Philip Bate, whose wife was Helen Bullitt, and
148
Bate
Edward Bate, who married Fannie Mayo, eind
has two children, Rebekkah Bate Welch, of New
York, and Yandell Bate, U. S. A.
149
COLONEL JOHN FLOYD
Sketched from the photograph of an old picture which hung
in Col. R. T. Durrett's library, used to illustrate William
Floyd Tuley's "Genealogy of the Tuley and Floyd Families".
Photographs of Colonel Floyd's son and grandson, the
John Floyds, who were Governors of Virginia, bear a striking
resemblance to this old likeness of the vigorous pioneer.
The Floyd Family. I.
TETTERS written by Col. John Floyd to his
I chief. Col. William Preston, county lieuten-
ant and surveyor of Fincastle county, Va.,
present an exceptionally fine picture of how Ken-
tucky was wrested from the Indians and of the
early settling of Louisville and of the Central Ken-
tucky towns, but are even more interesting in
the light they cast upon their author, John Floyd,
pioneer statesman and surveyor, and Kentucky's
hero of heroes.
A Virginia gentleman of rare mental attain-
ments, brave as a lion, a true friend, of the warm-
est affections, Col. Floyd reveals himself in his
letters to Col. Preston and to Gen. George
Rogers Clark, letters written between 1774 and
1 783, the best years and the last years of his
life, for at thirty-three Floyd was a victim of the
Indians. While comparatively little has been
recorded in histories, Floyd's letters are pre-
served in the Virginia Archives and the Draper
MSS., making an authentic memorial to his
achievements.
John Floyd was bom in 1750, in Amherst
county, Va., a son of Col. William Floyd and
Abigail (or Abediah) Davis Floyd, and one of a
153
Louisville's First Families
number of children who later emigrated to Ken-
tucky to become founders of Louisville families.
Abigail Davis was a sister of Evan Davis, grand-
father of Jefferson Davis, according to a tradi-
tion in the family, and like her husband was de-
scended from Welsh emigrants to Virginia. In
1772, John Floyd moved to Fincastle county,
where he taught school, living in the home of Col.
William Preston. Two years later Preston made
Floyd a deputy surveyor and appointed him chief
of a surveying party to Kentucky, then known
as a part of Fincastle county. The party set out
on April 7 from Col. Preston's home at 1 o'clock
in the afternoon in high spirits, escorted three
miles by the surveyor, according to Hanson's
Journal, kept by one of Floyd's party, Thomas
Hanson, a young gentleman who faithfully set
down the traveling experiences of the brave little
band. He tells how they received news of battles
with the Indians; of meeting up with friends in
the forest and having a feast of bear meat; of
overtaking Hancock Taylor at the head of an-
other surveying party, and of the men proceed-
ing together in great harmony; of Mr. Floyd lay-
ing off two thousand acres of land on Cole river
for Col. George Washington; of lands surveyed
in Kentucky for Patrick Henry and other promi-
nent men of the time. Floyd's special mission
on his first trip was to make survey of the bounty
154
Floyd
lands offered to veterans of the French and
Indian Wars. In that year the activities of the
hostile Indians led Dunmore to order the recall
of the Virginia surveyors, and Daniel Boone was
sent by Preston to order Floyd to bring in his
men. On the 26th of August Floyd writes to
Preston: "You will hear by Capt. Russell of the
death of Mr. Hancock Taylor and one of the
company, my poor brother sufferers whose deaths
I hope to revenge yet," showing that even this
early in his work he had cast his lot with the
cause of Kentucky.
Floyd then joined the forces of Gen. Andrew
Lewis, but was not in time for the fighting at
Point Pleasant. In January, 1775, he was sent
back to Kentucky by his chief to make a survey
on soldier claims and established the station of
St. Asaph. In May he was on Dix river with his
party and met up with Lieut. John Henderson,
of the Transylvania Company, a settler at
Boonesborough, who distrusted Floyd because
he represented Col. Preston, whose interests and
Henderson's did not coincide. Regarding Floyd,
Henderson made the following entry in his jour-
nal on May 3, 1775:
"Capt. John Floyd arrived here conducted by
one John Drake, from a camp on the Dix river,
where he had left about thirty of his company
from Virginia. He said he was sent by them to
155
Louisville's First Families
know on what terms they might settle on our
lands. This man appeared to have a great share
of modesty, an honest, open countenance and no
small share of good sense, and, petitioning in
behalf of himself and his whole company, among
whom were one Mr. Dandridge (Alexander Spotts-
wood Dandridge), and one Mr. Todd, two gents
of the law, in their own right, and several other
young gents of good family, we thought it ad-
visable to secure them to our interest if possible,
and not show the least distrust of the intentions
of Capt. Floyd, on whom we intend to keep a
strict watch."
However, Floyd effected an understanding
with Henderson and did not participate in the
land fights that ensued.
In a letter from Boonesborough to Col. Pres-
ton, written July 21, I 776, he describes the rescue
of the Calloway girls and Daniel Boone's
daughter from the Indians, after they had been
taken captives from a canoe on the river. He
cites this among the Indian depredations, and
concludes: "If the war becomes general, which
there now is the greatest appearance of, our
situation is truly alarming. I want to return as
much as any person can do, but if I leave the
country now, there is scarcely one single man
hereabouts but that will follow my example.
When I think of the deplorable conditions a few
156
Floyd
helpless families are likely to be in, I conclude to
sell my life as dear as I can, in their defense,
rather than to make an ignominious escape.
**I do, at the request and in behalf of all the
distressed women and children, and other in-
habitants of this place, implore the aid of every
leading man who has it in his power to give them
any relief."
But the war was on in earnest and Capt.
Floyd returned to Virginia, where he was given
charge of the privateer Phoenix, sent out to prey
upon British commerce. He sailed to the West
Indies and found rich soil, but was captured by
the British off the Bahamas and taken to an Eng-
lish prison. After a year as prisoner he escaped,
aided by the jailer's wife, made his way to
France, where he secured aid of Benjamin
Franklin and went home to Virginia.
In 1779 Floyd with his wife, Jane Buchanan,
a niece of his friend. Col. Preston, started for
Kentucky, making their way to the Falls of Ohio,
accompanied or followed by several of his
brothers and sisters. He built Floyd's Station,
which stood on lands about a mile from St.
Matthews. Unfortunately for Floyd and his
family, their year at the Falls was one of pitiless
cold, always spoken of in history as the "hard
winter."
157
Louisville's First Families
In a letter to Preston, Floyd tells of the
weather being "violently hard," of there being
no arrivals or news down the river in some
weeks. He congratulates Col. and Mrs. Preston
on the arrival of their sixth daughter. (Letitia
Preston was the bride of John Floyd, Jr., who
became Governor of Virginia.) Floyd con-
tinues: "I can't buy a bushel of corn for $50,
and everything else seems nearly in proportion.
Jenny and myself often lament the want of our
fine crop of corn the valley of Arcadia, and we
both seem to have a fondness yet for that coun-
try notwithstanding all the advantages we expect
in future. We sometimes laugh at our misfortune
with hopes of doing better in a few months,
which will soon pass away." In January, Floyd
writes again to Col. Preston of the extremity of
the settlers at the Falls. "If anybody comes by
water I wish we could get a little flour brought
down if it was as dear as gold dust. Since I wrote,
com has been sold at the Falls for $1 65 a bushel.
I have sent $600 by Mr. Randolph, a friend of
mine, which is for my brother Charles, to pur-
chase some cattle and drive out next spring. We
have no prospect of getting any linen. Jenny
sends her best wishes and desires to know if it
will be possible for Charles to get anything to
clothe her and the little boy." Later, May 31:
"Do order Charles to bring the net profits of the
158
Floyd
crop in Arcadia in clothing or we shall be obliged
to use fig leaves. The Indians plan to make this
neighborhood the seat of war this season. Two
men bring accounts that six hundred English w^ith
united enemy Indians are now preparing to march
against the Falls with artillery. Hardly one week
passes without someone being scalped between
this and the Falls, and I have almost got too
cowardly to travel about the woods without com-
pany."
In this year of 1 780, Floyd was appointed one
of the original trustees of the new city, Louis-
ville, and it is generally supposed that he was
also a justice of the peace. His correspondence
with Col. Preston during the summer shows the
pioneer life as arduous and full of anxiety. In
June he writes: "People this year seem gen-
erally to have lost their health, but perhaps it is
owing to the disagreeable way in which we are
obliged to live, crowded in forts, where the air
seems to have lost all its purity and sweetness.
Our little boy has been exceedingly ill." A post-
script to the letter: "Uncle Davis and his son
killed near Cumberland Mountains five weeks
ago going into settlement. There were four
brothers, all of whom have been murdered in
seven or eight years. I hear nothing of Charles,
and fear if he comes with a small company he
will share the fate his uncle and son has done."
159
Louisville's First Families
In the following year Floyd assumes heavy
responsibilities, for in 1781 Gen. Clark wrote
Gov. Jefferson, of Virginia, asking him to ap-
point Col. John Floyd to the position of county
lieutenant, describing Floyd as "a gentleman who
would do honor to the position and known to
be the most capable in the county, a soldier, a
gentleman, and a scholar, whom the inhabitants,
for his actions, have the greatest confidence in."
Floyd was appointed county lieutenant and his
letters from this time until his death, to Preston
and to Clark, deal with the defense of the fort
at the foot of Twelfth street, at Fort Nelson, of
militia without ammunition and with horses lost,
of the defenseless position of the stations. He
writes that the reason that the country is not de-
serted is due to the fact that the Ohio runs only
one way, and that the miserable inhabitants have
lost their horses, that the Indians are continually
pecking at the settlers, forty-seven inhabitants
killed or captured from January to May. In
September, Col. Floyd writes Gen. Clark that
his company of twenty-seven had been dispersed
and cut to pieces, only nine men coming off the
field. "A party was defeated yesterday at the
same place and many women and children
wounded. 1 want satisfaction; do send me one
hundred men, which number with what I can
160
Floyd
raise, will do. Militia has no good powder, do
send some. I can't write — guess at rest."
Col. Floyd appeals to Gen. Clark in May,
1 782, in behalf of the inhabitants of Spring Sta-
tion, who had become so alarmed that they fear-
ed to plant their corn without a small guard.
They offer their services for work on Ft. Nelson
in exchange for a guard of Gen. Clarke's troops
for a week's planting. In the same letter he tells
of planning to search houses for hemp needed
in equipping boats on the river to be employed
in fighting the savages, and writes Clark that he
and his men have been making rope from "pop-
paw bark." An earlier letter to Gen. Clark told
of preparing canoes ordered by the government,
and stated that he, Floyd, was liable for the
price of most of them, about four thousand
pounds. He writes: "People have been so long
amused with promises of paying off indebtedness
long incurred that the credit of the State is very
little better here than in Illinois." It is understood
that Floyd and the other pioneers of means were
never remunerated for many of their expendi-
tures of this nature, and practically ruined them-
selves, giving funds, service, their all, to save
Kentucky.
A letter to Col. Preston, in March, 1 783, in-
forms him of the death of Billy Buchanan, Mrs.
Floyd's brother, at the hands of the Indians. In
161
Louisville's First Families
this letter Floyd observes that he expected some-
thing like this to be his own lot. Within a month
his apprehension proved true, for on April 1 0,
while riding to the salt works from his station
on Beargrass, Col. Floyd was fired upon by In-
dians and received a mortal wound. In com-
pany with him was a brother, whose horse was
shot from under him, and a third person, who
was killed outright. Col. Floyd was carried by
his brother to the salt works, where he died two
days later. On April 24 a son was born to Mrs.
Floyd, named John, for his father. This John
Floyd went back to Virginia to become Gover-
nor of the State in 1830, and he was the father
of John Buchanan Floyd, elected Governor of
Virginia in 1850, and the Secretary of War in
185 7 under President Buchanan.
Col. Floyd left two other sons besides his post-
humous child, William Preston Floyd, who took
up his residence in Virginia, and Capt. George
Rogers Clark Floyd, who remained in Louisville
to become an Indian fighter like his father.
Floyd county, Floyd's Fork, Floyd street, in
this city, are all named for the distinguished
gentleman, John Floyd. A drinking fountain on
Main street between Third and Fourth was pre-
sented to the city, several years ago, by Allen R.
Carter through the Sons of the Revolution, as a
marker for Floyd's old blockhouse, which stood
162
Floyd
between Main and the River and Third and
Fourth; a monument stands at Eastwood, on the
Shelbyville pike, erected a number of years ago
to Col. Floyd and his men.
(Copies of Col. John Floyd's letter preserved
in the Draper manuscripts and in the Virginia
archives are in the library of Mr. Temple
Bodley.)
163
CAPTAIN THOMAS FLOYD SMITH
From a portrait painted when he was a young man and in
his uniform of Lieutenant, Eighth Infantry, U. S. A., hanging
in the home of his son, Thomas Floyd Smith, at Glenview.
The Floyd Family. II.
WHEN Col. John Floyd came out from
Virginia in 1779 to take up his resi-
dence near Falls of Ohio, it is said a
number of his brothers and sisters journeyed with
him or followed him. His correspondence with
Col. William Preston, the surveyor of Fincastle
county, his lifelong friend and an uncle of his
second wife, Jane Buchanan, deals repeatedly
with the coming of a brother, Charles Floyd, who
was with Col. Floyd at the time of his death.
The parents of the pioneers. Col. William
Floyd and his wife, Abediah (or Abigail) Davis,
were of Welsh descent, and the family tradition
that there is a strain of Indian blood in the
Davis family is sustained by old photographs of
various descendants, while high cheek bones and
blue black hair are noticeable in some genera-
tion of each branch of the Floyd connection.
Abediah Davis Floyd, through her father,
Robert Davis, who acquired vast properties in
Amherst county, Virginia, trading with the
Catawba Indians, according to the tradition, was
a lineal descendant of Opechancanough, brother
of Powhatan, Princess Nicketti, the chieftain's
daughter, marrying Nathaniel Davis, of Wales.
167
Louisville's First Families
Col. William Floyd had one brother, Charles
Floyd, who settled in Georgia, the forebear of
Major Gen. John Floyd, of Georgia, who was the
grandfather of William McAdoo, former Secre-
tary of the Treasury.
Col. John Floyd married in his early manhood
a Miss Burwell, of Virginia, who had one
daughter. Mourning Floyd, and died shortly after
the birth of her child. Mourning Floyd mar-
ried Col. John Stewart, of Georgia. Ten years
after the death of his first wife Col. Floyd mar-
ried Jane Buchanan, a kinswoman of James
Patton, the Louisville settler, according to some
accounts.
Three sons were born to John and Jane
Floyd, William Preston Floyd, George Rogers
Clark Floyd and John Floyd, who was a
posthumous child, born twelve days after
his father's death. George Rogers Clark
Floyd, who was the only one of the three to
remain in Louisville, the other brothers going to
Virginia, was an Indian fighter. His rank in
the army is sometimes given as captain and
sometimes as major, but it is known that he
commanded a regiment at the battle of Tippe-
canoe. He was twice married, his first wrife be-
ing Maria Maupin. Their only son, John Floyd,
went to Iowa to locate.
168
Floyd
Major Floyd's home was near Cherokee Park,
where he died in 1 82 1 . His declining health
was due to the rigors of the campaign against
Tecumseh at Fort Harrison.
Major Floyd's second wife, to whom he was
married in 1810, was Sarah Fontaine, one of
the nine daughters of Capt. Aaron Fontaine.
They had two daughters, Jane and Evelyn
Floyd, and the former has a grandson, living in
Louisville. Clark Penn, the son of Col. George
Floyd Penn, of New Albany, the only known de-
scendant of the illustrious John Floyd, known to
make his home here.
John Floyd, who went back to Virginia, mar-
ried his cousin, Letitia Preston. He studied
medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and
practiced his profession for a time. Dr. Floyd
was elected Governor of Virginia in 1828. His
son, John Buchanan Floyd, was Governor of
Virginia in 1850, was Secretary of War under
Buchanan in 1857, and was a General in the
Confederate Army. The first Gov. Floyd had
a daughter, Nicketti, who married John W.
Johnston, United States Senator from Virginia,
and she was the mother of Dr. George Ben
Johnston, of Richmond, Va., whose daughters,
Nicketti and Helen Johnston, often visit here at
the home of Mr. and Mrs. Temple Bodley.
169
Louisville's First Families
Charles Floyd married Mary Stewart in 1773
in the Hanover Parish church. Their children
were pioneer settlers in Indiana. One son was
Judge Davis Floyd, prominent in the territorial
history of Indiana, while another was Sergt.
Charles Floyd, of the Lewis and Clark Expedi-
tion, who died on the trip to the coast and was
buried at Sioux City, la., where a handsome
marble shaft marks his grave. This monument
was erected by the Floyd Memorial Association,
the government contributing $20,000 toward the
monument and grounds, known as Floyd Park,
commemorating Sergt. Floyd and the Lewis and
Clark Expedition.
Isham Floyd, another of the brothers, was
killed by the Indians on the Ohio river in 1 787.
Nathaniel Floyd, the youngest brother, who
married Mollie Thomas in Louisville in 1 793,
was a soldier in Thomas Joyes' regiment at the
battle of New Orleans. After the war Floyd,
v/ith several companions, walked through to their
homes. He had a farm in the neighborhood of
Anchorage, but was living in Louisville at the
time of his death in 1840. Two of his daughters
have descendants here. Abediah Davis Floyd
married Richard Meriwether, and after his death
Henry Weaver, of Cincinnati, O. A daughter,
Susan Floyd Weaver, married Ernest Gunter,
the well-known musician. Mrs. Gunter was
170
Floyd
much interested in the Floyd genealogy and was
a member of the Floyd Memorial Association.
She furnished an old letter used in establishing
Sergt. Charles Floyd's connection with the Lou-
isville family, a letter written by one of his
brothers, Nathaniel Floyd, to his sister, Nancy,
telling of Sergt. Floyd's death. This Nancy
Floyd married George Rogers and had a
daughter, Nancy, who married Judge Wesley
Phelps, of Bullitt county. It is believed that the
remains of Col. John Floyd repose on the Phelps
farm, on the banks of Floyd's Fork, just north
of the public road leading from Shepherdsville
to Mt. Washington, and about one mile from
the former place.
A daughter of Susan Floyd Gunter is Carrie
Gunter, who lives in Ivanhoe Court. Ernest
Gunter, her brother, makes his home in Kansas
City, a civil engineer.
Ann Eliza Floyd, who married George W.
Bowling, is the ancestress of Louisville people.
Her son, J. W. Bowling, was the father of Pearl
Bowling (Mrs. Clay McCandless), and of
Blanche Bowling. Mrs. Emma Garvin Harlow,
whose mother was Mary Bowling, is the mother
of Edna and Nora Harlow and Floyd Preston
Harlow.
Elizabeth Floyd, an elder sister of Col, John
Flo3''d, married in Virginia, Charles Tuley, of a
171
Louisville's First Families
prominent family of Farquier county. The
Tuleys decided to make their way to the new
settlement and arrived in Louisville in Sep-
tember, I 783. The Tuley family found the other
side of the Ohio to their liking, and the family
was one of the most prominent and influential
in New Albany. The oldest son, William Floyd
Tuley, married Jane Bell, daughter of William
Bell, of Louisville, having a son, John Wesley
Tuley, who married Phoebe Woodruff,
daughter of Judge Seth Woodruff, of New
Albany. Their son, Enos Seth Tuley, came to
Louisville to locate in 1857, and was postmaster
of Louisville. He married Mary Eliza Speed, of
the pioneer Speed family, and their children in
Louisville are Philip Tuley, Dr. Henry Enos Tuley
and Thomas Speed Tuley.
Another descendant of the Floyds through
the Tuley line is Rose Tuley, who married
Charles Earl Currie, of Louisville. Her brothers
are Lawrence and Walter Tuley of New
Albany.
One sister, Abigail Davis Floyd, married in
Fincastle, Va., Thomas Smith, a Virginian, who
was killed by the Indians in 1 786 at the storm-
ing of Brashear's Fort, near Beargrass creek.
Their son was Major Thomas Floyd Smith, bom
in 1 784. He was ensign of rifles in 1813 after
serving as a second lieutenant in 1812, but he
172
Floyd
particularly distinguished himself in the Indian
wars. He was adjutant to Gen. E. P. Gaines
and led the stornning party in attack at Ft. Erie.
He was breveted major and retired from the
army in 1837, Uving in St. Louis, where he died
in 1843.
Major Smith married Emilie Chouteau, a
Creole, and one of the daughters of Col. Auguste
Chouteau, surveyor of Louisiana, who as a youth
of 1 4, landed at the site of the present city of
St. Louis, in charge of the first party of colonists.
Col. Chouteau, who superintended the building
of the first house in St. Louis, owned an enormous
tract of land in the heart of the city at his death,
part of which was presented to St, Louis as a
park by his grandson, Capt. Thomas Floyd
Smith.
Capt. Thomas Floyd Smith, born in 1832 at
a Little Rock army post, was appointed a
lieutenant in the Eighth Regiment, United States
Infantry, in 1855, but resigned in 1858. He
was captain of Washington Guards in St. Louis
and served under Gen. Frost in the campaign
against Kansans in 1861. His home was at
Pewee Valley, and his wife was Blanche
Weissinger, a descendant of the Bullitts, and his
children, who live in Louisville, are Mayor
George Weissinger Smith, who married Nell
Hunt; Thomas Floyd Smith, president of the
173
Louisville's First Families
Board of Trade, whose wife was Mary Bruce
before their marriage; Amanthus Smith Jung-
bluth and Nannie Smith, Mrs. Frank Carpenter.
Capt. Smith's brother, Louis Chouteau Smith,
of St. Louis, married his cousin, Mary Bullitt,
daughter of Alfred and Minerva Beckwith Bul-
litt. Minerva Beckwith Bullitt was the daughter
of John W. Beckwith, of Shepherdsville, and
Mary Floyd Smith, the sister of Major Thomas
Floyd Smith.
Capt. Smith's sister, Philomena Smith, mar-
ried Col. Charles P. Larned, U. S. A.
In the possession of Thomas Floyd Smith are
a number of papers which belonged to his grand-
father. Major Smith. One of these is a letter
written October 11, 1839, by Gen. Edward
Pendleton Gaines, to Major and Mrs, Smith,
"respectfully requesting them to accept a portrait
of Edward Pendleton Gaines as a slender token
of friendship and in remembrance of unceasing
admiration, cherished for twenty-five years, of
repeated acts of gallantry by which the then
Lieut. Smith, of the First Rifle Regiment, signal-
ized himself and did honor to his corps and his
country's service in the defense of Ft. Erie —
surpassed by none in the heroic enterprise, dis-
playing the untiring chivalry of a true-hearted
patriot."
174
Floyd
Another letter, beginning "Dear Capt," was
written by Gen. Zachary Taylor at Louisville on
January 4, 1824, to Major Smith, dealing with
Indian wars, with the political situation and of
Major Smith being detailed to command a ren-
dezvous to be established at St. Louis or Belle
Fontaine.
The Floyd monument in Shelbyville, which
is a fine white marble shaft, bears this inscrip-
tion. "Erected by the Commonwealth of Ken-
tucky in Memory of Fourteen Brave Soldiers who
Fell Under Capt. John Floyd in a Contest With
the Indians in 1 783."
Although Col. John Floyd was killed April 12,
1 783, his will was not probated until 1 794,
owing to the delay in having survey made of his
lands — from the Virginia government. He gave
all his lands on the north side of Beargrass to his
wife. To his son, Willian Preston Floyd, he
gave 2,000 acres on the south side of the creek;
to his son, G. R. C. Floyd, a tract of 4,000
acres in Fayette county, and to his unborn son
(Gov. John Floyd) he left 1,400 acres on
Harrod's creek, ordering the property to be held
until the children were of age, and a division of
his slaves to be made.
To his brother, Isham, he left 200 acres of
Floyd's Fork, and to his brothers, Charles and
Robert, 400 acres in any part of his lands they
175
Louisville's First Families
might select on the condition that they com-
plete his surveys and secure patents on all his
lands, and with this an equitable division of
surveying fees.
/-^ _
176